


Dumbass One and Two

by Leeeee05



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Awkward Flirting, Bad Flirting, Big Brother Shiro (Voltron), Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Blood, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Excessive Cursing, Flirting, Fluff, Happy Ending, Headaches & Migraines, Homesickness, Hunk (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Keith (Voltron) Has Abandonment Issues, Keith (Voltron) Has Issues, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance is a Tease (Voltron), M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, One-Sided Relationship, Romantic Soulmates, Slow Burn, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Team Bonding, Texting, Touch-Starved Keith (Voltron), but not a texting fic, but not from the side you'd expect, cause they college kids, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25063909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leeeee05/pseuds/Leeeee05
Summary: Keith's tolerance for the dumb things students did at the Garrison had only gone down since Shiro had disappeared. So when somebody called Lance starts acting all high and mighty, Keith really can't stand it anymore, and punches him. And that was how he found his soulmate.Slowburn following Keith and Lance as they figure out everything about being soulmates, especially how to not fight every two minutes, with big brother Shiro, who had already gone through this all this, laughing at them.Loosely based around Toboe's fic Zero(link below) definitely check it, the writing is amazing!https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548689/chapters/43963657
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Matt Holt/Shiro
Comments: 10
Kudos: 157





	1. Chapter 1

The classroom they were in was big, but not big enough. Keith was pretty sure that no room would ever be big enough to not hear his voice. He would just sit there, not even taking notes and talk for the entire goddamn class. Then, he would think he was ‘the shit’ during training and try and pull an absolute 180 and be amazing. At least he usually couldn't pull all that shit off Keith worked for his place, and wasn’t about to let some slacker take his place. 

“Did you hear that Jessica, you know, the girl from High school, the blonde chick that totally had a thing for me, is getting married next week? I know right! She totally had a thing for me, just couldn’t stomach a long distance relationship.” His friend must have said something about how he’s a cocky asshole, Keith was about ready to do that himself, when the guy gasps. That whole dramatic, full body gasp where he's totally trying for attention harder than when Keith was in foster care, and then exclaims, full volume, no care for the looks half the class and their teacher are giving him. “How dare you? My best friend, betraying me!” 

“If you cannot keep quiet during my class, then please leave, the exit is to your left.” 

The guy just waves him off, “Yeah, yeah,” and continues his conversation. And by god, Keith was ready to start a fight with him right there. His cocky ass didn’t even care when the teacher asked him to shut up, and just continued talking. Have a little respect.

He was about ready to just walk up to him and break his jaw when their teacher dismissed them. Finally. 

Collecting his stuff, Keith couldn’t get home any quicker, he had shit to do and didn’t waste a second. Unfortunately, some people liked to waste all their time. 

Standing right past the doorway was the guy, he had brown hair and tanned skin, his hands were gesturing wildly as his friend stood past the doorway, trying to put stuff back into his bag out of the way of the doorway, while the guy just continued to stand in everyone's way. 

“Move,” Keith didn’t know he said it until the guy looked up to him, a smirk on his face, a cocky smirk. God, Keith really could punch him right now. 

“Just a second, baby, I’m helping my friend. There’s enough of me to go around afterwards.” 

Well. Keith took a step back, his fist tightening till his knuckles were white. His arm pulled back, and in an instant, before the guy could even realize it, he was on his ass halfway across the hall. 

Something felt very, very off. Keith couldn't really explain it, beyond the fact that he had just punched someone, but his stomach was in his chest, and his heart was ready to beat out of his rib-cage. Everything felt too hot, and too cold at the same time. 

“Keith, Lance, in my office right now!” Their teacher stood behind them both, students watching with phones in hand. Keith really didn’t regret anything, but something still felt off. 

Shiro would have probably told him it was his conscious, and then Keith would have punched him too. 

Lance, as the teacher had called him, pulled himself off the ground, brushing the nonexistent dirt off of himself, and gave Keith a dirty look as he pushed him aside, getting into the class before him. 

He was really trying to get beat up, wasn’t he. That jackass. At least he now had a name to put to his face. Lance. 

It sounded strange in his head, Keith offhandedly wondered how it would sound on his tounge. He was so loud, but he almost gave off a comforting presence, like someone that Keith would have killed to have earlier in his life. Someone that he could just hold onto, a never let go and everything would be alright.

Lance was just sitting there, while they were both being yelled at, but he was still just so- 

“Report for extra training, room 3117, in twenty minutes. Johnson will be overseeing.” Johnson had a stick up his ass, and would keep them both there till they were ready to pass out, throw up, or all of the above. They would miss dinner, and Keith wouldn’t even get home till 11. 

And their asshole of a teacher probably knew that. Keith knew he should have just skipped this class, he would have been better off. Or, if he actually dropped out like he planned, none of this would have happened. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the balls to actually do that.

“You have twenty minutes, I’m looking at you, Lance, to change and get in there before your punishment is doubled. I expect good words from Johnson.” 

Lance deadpans, “Yes sir,” and practically deflates, obviously realizing what the rest of their night had in store. He goes to turn around, before pausing, holding up a finger, in dramatic fashion, “Uhh, what room again?” 

If he could have, Keith would have slammed his head into the wall. Whatever good aura Lance had before was absolutely gone. He was just a little dramatic bitch, and Keith was ready to punch him again, no matter the consequences.

“3117, Lance,” the teacher turns away, grabbing papers, when Keith hears him mutter, “God be with you, he knows you need it.”

Stopping dead in his tracks, to Keith’s absolute delight, Lance turns slowly, a pissed off expression on his face. “Ay, dios mio, really? Did you just say that?” 

Keith’s chuckling, trying to keep quiet and back away before shit goes down. You don’t mess with drama kids. They won’t do much damage, as far as Keith’s seen, but they will make it as big an issue as they possibly can, the whole school will know exactly what you did, and then twenty more things that may or may not be true.

“I’m not sure if you can actually read, but I am doing absolutely fine in your class, and I don’t even have to listen to your boring ass lectures.” Lance narrowed his eyes on the teacher, in an almost frightening way, with his feet planted steadily, and hands on his hips, looking ready to throw down. 

Oh my god, Keith really wanted some popcorn right about now. He was acting like such a bitch this might as well have been a teenage romance movie. That would be even better. Throw in an angry ex, a few dozen love triangles, then Keith would have enough entertainment to keep up for his lack of wifi or half decent service. 

“Lance, hold your tongue. Johnson will be told about this, and will deal with it accordingly.” Their teacher, who always looked a little dead inside, had a little bit of fear in his eyes. Oh, he had seen the wraith of a drama student as well. That made this so much better. 

Lance held his ground, face almost red, confidence practically radiating off him, “If you think I’m just going to-” 

Luckily for Lance, Keith’s phone goes off, a notification he had set earlier. Lance and their teacher both turn towards the sound, eyes wide with almost surprise, but mostly just rage that was practically just transferred over to him. “Young man, phones are not allowed on campus.” 

He held out his phone, the rage still not leaving his eyes but now directed towards Keith, “If you expect me to just sit here, you can also expect the same extra punishment as Lance.” His fingers snapped. Keith was very ready to snap his wrist. He had obviously seen everyone outside of the classroom, yet he didn’t care about phones till now. 

Keith was very ready to punch him, his eyes narrowing on their teacher in an almost sinister way.

Something grabbed his arm, lunging him forwards, and away from that bitch of a teacher, “We’re heading out now, see ya,” under his breath, Lance mutters, “you absolute puta. Pinche mi-” 

“What do you think you’re doing?” The teacher yells, as they pass the door, “Get back here, Johnson will be made aware of all this, and you can expect-” 

Lance just pulls his faster, almost a full out sprint down the hallways. His hand never leaves his arm, holding on tightly as he gets thrown through the school, till they land outside. They’re panting, out of breath and almost dying in the heat. 

“I can’t be-” Lance tries, and fails to say, having to take another breath. He tilts his head back, closing his eyes, breathing deeply. “Believe we just did that. Holy fuck. What the hell. I haven’t even skipped class. Oh my god.” 

Has he really not…? Keith just kind of assumed that anyone willing to talk their way through their entire class was someone also willing to skip class. “Have you really not skipped a class before? At all?”

The boy double takes, taking time to look Keith up and down. The sunlight hits his eyes just right, turning them from a gray color Keith didn’t really see before into a stunningly bright blue. 

He didn’t even notice that Lance had started talking again, muttering something about how he was a good student, he promised. Blah blah blah, straight A’s.

“Yeah right. You talk all class,” his jaw tightens, staring down Lance, “Shut your damn mouth sometimes.” 

“Bro.” he puts a hand to his chest, holding it, looking hurt, “We were having a moment, why’d you have to ruin it.” Oh my god, the exasperated look on his face, somewhere between looking hurt and looking like an absolute ass made him so much more punchable. 

Keith looked him over, once again. It felt like every time he looked at him it was different, as if he was a different person every time. One second he would feel comforting, the next he was back to being punchable, then caring, and funny, and then bitchy. 

Lance’s eyebrows quirked, a small grin on his face, “Oh, I promise that’s not all of me.” He had a tilt to his voice, something that was almost confidence but still fear. It just sounded off, nothing like he had heard the boy sound like during classes. 

“Back off, jackass.” Keith glared upwards toward Lance, cursing his height. “I’m leaving.” 

“But what about-?” the questioning look on his face quickly switches to a smirk, again. Seriously, he needed to stop smirking. His cheekbones really popped out, and then he would smile a little bit and then- it didn’t look good at all, Keith tried to tell himself, it wasn’t cute in any way. 

Without too much protest, Keith leaves the campus. He didn’t live too far out, just a five minute ride on a scooter. Unluckily, he was poor as hell, and didn’t have money to keep up a scooter or even to actually buy one.

Luckily, the ones at the school were only behind a locked gate.

Also luckily, those locks were really easy to pick. It took him less than a week to break one out, they were kept in a weird secluded area that no one really went to, but students were still technically allowed there.

Now, he keeps it just off the school grounds, available to him at a moment's notice. It’s kinda amazing, he had repainted it so that it was all black, repurposed parts of the motors so the highest speed was even higher. 

Stepping on, and hitting the gas, Keith zoomed away from that dumbass school, and the dumbass teachers, the even more dumb students, and Lance. 

Something about that guy just left him on edge, no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t keep his mind off him, trying to bring himself to even think about not seeing him hurt. 

Without any regard for his own safety, Keith pushed on the gas again, watching the dust pick up behind him as he flew through the desert. Wind was pushing past his face, his hair going wild, jacket barely hanging on.

It was all exhilarating. The speed, the danger, it was something he would never get tired of. And the best part was coming up. 

A giant chasm stood between him and his house, well, besides going the long way down the mountain, which was boring as hell. It had to be 200 feet across, double that down. It was dark at the bottom, birds would fly through it.

But, across was his house, sitting there, nearly abandoned. 

A small smile made its way onto his face, as the edge got closer, as he tried to kick the scooter into a higher gear, making the entire scooter shudder as he pushed forwards at an insane speed. The wind was whipping past him now, pushing everything around.

And then, he was in the air, flying over the dark pit. It felt like he was weightless, it was truly something else, something he would enjoy for the rest of his life. 

Landing almost gently, his scooter trembles as he pushes it down a few gears, the boosters almost happily obliging and sputtering down to something almost nonexistent. 

In front of him stood a house, destroyed by dust, muted until it was almost the color of the sand. The windows were barely holding on, not quite broken but looking through them showed you a dulled world of already dull colors. 

Pulling the scooter up, Keith leans it on the side of the house, reaching into his pockets for a key that has to be in there somewhere. It always seems to disappear, and this headache that came out of nowhere might not be helping at all, but he swore he put it in his pocket. 

His head pounds, for a second, then disappears. 

That was going to get annoying, and very fast. He wasn’t really one to get headaches, only when he was actually dying of dehydration or something like that, but this headache just hurt, like something was taking a hammer to his skull. 

Finally finding the keys, he pulls them out, and half assedly aims them towards the door, his head pounding even harder. Did he catch the flu or something? A really bad cold? 

Shaking his head, he finally gets the door open. It slams open with a start, wind pushing even more dust inside. He just sighed, it would never really be clean of all the dust, and he could really honestly care less about cleaning, so it would stay dirty. 

Exhaustion hit him the second he set his bag down, his head pleading at him to at least just sit down, but, food. With a grumbling stomach, Keith ignored the rest of his body to grab a bag of whatever he could find first, and plopping himself down on the couch. 

Whatever it was is amazing. He couldn’t really read the title, something korean and he had always been too lazy to learn the language, but he would have to look for some more of it next time he went shopping. 

He always put that off to the last minute, though, so next time would probably be a month from now when he decided that trying to steal from the school wasn’t worth it at this point and he should just spend some of his own very scarce money to get some food. 

Exhaustion hit him again, and with a heavy heart, he set down the food on the table, and closed his eyes. Sleep took him almost instantly, unlike most of the times he would try to sleep this early in the day. It would take hours to even feel a lick of exhaustion, the insomnia was real. 

But, every once in a while, he would have a day when everything seemed to finally hit him, and he could sleep for 17 hours and still be ready to sleep some more.

When he finally woke up, light had already cracked over the horizon and his stomach was growling again. And his headache was still here, goddammit, he wanted to actually be able to think sometime soon, but that wasn’t going to happen if it wouldn’t go away. 

His legs felt too stiff, but Keith forced himself to stand, while yawning and reaching for the rest of his food, it would have to do for breakfast. 

Taking the bag of food with him, and grabbing his backpack, he headed out. There was a small breeze, pushing the dust around, making it look just like the wild west movies his dad used to watch, all they needed was some tumbleweeds, and it would be complete. 

The scooter slowly turned on, giving Keith a second wake up, looking over the horizon at the sun. It had to be around... 9, maybe 8(?) at this point. He really wasn’t sure, but instead of pondering how many classes he had missed, he pushed his aching body onto the scooter, and started on his trek towards the school.

It was a long path, winding up and down the canyon in an almost dangerous fashion. No one really travelled over there, so no rails were put up, wildlife roamed free. On more than one occasion, he had to scare off a coyote or snake, and move some mildly dangerous looking plants with nothing but his own two hands. 

All in all, it was pretty great, and a good adrenaline rush. Not as good as flying over the canyon, but still pretty good. 

Eventually, he could see the school in the distance, no longer just looking towards the canyon towering over him, and kicked the scooter into an upper gear. 

It had to be 9 at this point, he would have missed almost two classes, maybe 2 and a half if he was lucky. People were still arriving to the school, but most people weren’t idiotic enough to sign up for such early morning classes as he had. 

He had been acting cocky that morning, when Shiro had practically dragged him kicking and screaming into the school, and made him sign up for classes. 

“Come on Keith, it’s really not that big. You just pick the classes that you want to do, and that fit the requirements. You don’t even have to take the test to get in.” Shiro tried to smile, but Keith could see through that fake thing on his fake, and scowled.

“No. I could learn all this on my own, anyway.” He crossed his arms over his chest, spite running through him, why the hell would Shiro want him to go to this nerd school anyway? He wasn’t doing well in school before, no teachers actually cared anywhere, no matter what school he went to. 

“But here, they teach you how to drive actual planes, not just simulations.” Shiro looked down again, a brotherly, or at least, what Keith expected to be a brotherly smile on his face as he patted Keith's shoulder, “If you take this class,” that asshole had said, pointing towards the 7 am flight practice class, “the teacher doesn’t care if you’re late, and lets you pick your plane once you get halfway through the year.” 

That absolute bastard. He knew what he was doing. That teacher was amazing, and she really did try, but now Keith had to wake up before 7 to get to school and actually see that teacher on time, and that meant that he had to actually go to sleep earlier than 3 am. 

It was probably just brotherly love. Not that either of them would know, they both didn’t have brothers, or siblings, or really families at all. At least Shiro had his mom and partner. 

Had.

He really shouldn’t be thinking about this right now, or he would be punching someone before lunch, and Keith really wanted to eat today. 

Luckily, as he parked his scooter, his headache started to fade, dropping down from a 5 pain to a 2 pain. Headaches would always be annoying, and make it nearly impossible to think, but now he could at least function a little bit better. 

With his scooter parked and secured, Keith made his way into the school, through the large front doors, and into the goddamn amazing air conditioning. It was amazing. The desert was too hot. Especially because he refused to take off his jacket and the dumbass school uniform was long sleeved.

Keith takes his time getting to his class, rethinking dropping out and becoming a desert hobo. This teacher wasn’t even worth being around. He threatened to expel people every other day, yet never actually did anything about the bad students, and then he would rant about god knows what, and yell at Keith. 

Trying his best to be silent, he opens the door, and sits down in the nearest seat. Eyes jump to him, but the teacher doesn’t seem to notice him. He’s writing something, what looks like letters jumbled with numbers on the board. 

He’s pretty sure this is math, but is never really sure what the hell is going on or why he needs to know this, and why there’s so many random letters. 

But, nonetheless, the class goes on, his teacher managing to fit in both a rant and yelling at Keith in the last 5 minutes, before pulling them twenty minutes over his actual class time. He had a really punchable face, and Keith was sure half his class agreed. It wasn’t their fault he couldn’t teach, yet they were still stuck here for extra time. 

In his next class, he sees that guy that Lance would talk to sitting alone. He was looking pretty bored, sitting with his pencil barrely hovering over the paper but never quite moving enough to look like he was actually taking notes. 

Usually, he would be taking notes while Lance would doddle on and on, about who knows what, but now, it just looked wrong. 

With a glance towards the teacher, Keith carefully picks up his stuff, dragging it in the direction of the guy. His teacher glances towards him, but says nothing, and neither do any of the students. Half of them were asleep, anyway. At least they showed up. 

“Hey,” Keith whispers, trying to keep his voice quiet, while still taking out his notebook and pen again. “Where’s Lance?” 

“Uhh,” the guys say, his voice slightly accented. He looked Samoan, with tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves. They looked intricate, but the guy just pulled down his sleeve, still mumbling under his breath, “He wasn’t feeling good this morning, last night either.” 

A phone buzzes, and he reaches into his pocket, “He just said he was feeling better, so he might show up soon.” The guys looks up, and Keith gets a better look at him. He has tanned skin, a deeper tan than Lance’s. His black hair was barely to his eyes, the lower half of it all shaved. The longer parts had a bit of a curl to them. 

“I’m Hunk, by the way,” Hunk says, a small smile on his face. He had a friendly look to him, like he was a big friendly giant. Which he was. The guy had to be at least 6 foot tall, absolutely towering over Keith, even while sitting down, he would probably be taller than him if Keith was standing and he was sitting down. 

“Keith.” he says with a nod. His eyes glance back up to the board, and the teacher slowly working through what they were supposed to be learning, and sets himself to work. 

At least, for five minutes. That five minutes were peaceful, and quiet. And really, really amazing. There was nothing to distract him, and it wasn’t too boring. And(!) his headache was going away. Keith was ready to cry happy tears as his headache went away, it was pure bliss. 

And then, Lance shoved the door open. He was holding food in his hands, a bag haphazardly thrown over his shoulder, yet his hair done to perfection. The door had slammed open, drawing the attention of the class and their teacher. 

“Would you like to-” their teacher tried to say, before Lance cut her off, shoving another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. 

“I wufv sick.” disgusting, please finish eating and have half decent manners, “continue.” 

Could he at least be a half decent human being?

Drawing even more students to look away from the board, and their teacher to continue staring, Lance stops dramatically before Keith, staring him down with a tired look in his eyes, “That’s my seat.” 

“There isn’t seating charts.” Keith deadpans, and gestures to the seat next to him, “Just sit down. You’re already late.”

“Hey-”

“But that’s my seat,” Lance throws his bag onto the ground, and shove his cereal onto a table, “I always sit there.” 

“Maybe-” 

Keith almost stands up, already feeling his hand tighten into a fist, “Sit down, jackass. Stop being dramatic.” 

Oh my god could he be even more dramatic. His sigh was loud, and high pitched, and drew looks from any students who weren’t already watching this go down. Lance has a mad look on his face, but not really mad, more like a mad puppy because if anything, he can’t make that face and not look cute. 

Wait-

“Now, if you’ll put your attention back to the board.” 

Lance continues getting all his stuff out, eating haphazardly and getting milk everywhere like a toddler. Then, finally, everything's quiet.

For one solid second. 

“Pssht-” Lance taps his arm, “what’s going on?” 

Instead of paying him any attention, Keith continues to take note, “Hey, Keith, come on dude. I was actually sick this morning.” 

“So was I, jackass, and I still came in.” 

Lance looks over at him, like its a challenge, with a smirk on his face, “Well, at least you didn’t have a migraine, I could barely move.” 

“I did. I just toughed it out cause I didn’t grow up to be a little bitch like you.” He raises his eyebrows, challenge accepted. 

“Yeah, well, I had that migraine since last night. It’s probably a concussion, cause, you know, you punched me into a wall.” 

“I did not!” this asshole, “I punched you onto the ground, and you were perfectly fine enough to sprint away from that jackass of a teacher.” 

“At least I actually went to Johnson’s class, unlike you. Who just ran like a wimp.” Lance says, looking smug, that dumb smirk was going to get him punched. 

“At least I’m not a little dramatic asshole who can’t take a hint.” 

He opens his mouth, fury in his eyes, when he stops.

That light leaves his eyes, and Lance goes silent. 

Wow. 

The rest of class sails by, with the occasional glance at Lance to make sure he’s still there. He’s so deadly silent, it’s weird. Keith almost misses the constant chatter that he gave the classroom. Out of everything, it was nice to hear, even if it was distracting, at least he knew that Lance was still there.

So when the rest of his day goes by, with Lance still quiet in every class, Keith doesn’t know what to do. His headache comes back, nowhere near as bad as before but at the back of his mind, a constant. 

Food didn’t help, and neither did water. Maybe he just needed more sleep. 

But, another answer nagged at him, in the back of his head, something Shiro had told him. But it couldn’t be. The world was terrible but it wasn’t that terrible, right? 

By the end of the day, after skipping that asshole who almost sent him to ‘not quite detention’’s class, Keith found himself exhausted. He was dragging his feet out of the campus, his headache already getting worse after being outside for just a few seconds. The light had to make it worse, every time he left the campus it would just get worse. 

Or…? 

Keith shook his head. It couldn’t have been. He didn’t have half the things Shiro had described, half the emotions Shiro had described. 

_“Sorry I was gone for so long,” Shiro had said, looking guilty, “Did you get a chance to meet Matt?” Keith shook his head, a sad expression on his face that he knew would eat Shiro up inside, “There’s a reason, I’m really sorry, its hard to explain. It’s best if I just tell you, and you ask questions after, alright?”_

Soo, it couldn't have been. Could it? 

With a sigh, Keith puts his scooter back into its spot, and heads back towards campus. He cuts through hallways, seeing students around campus, it was weird to see this many people around at once, in the mornings, not many people were there yet.

Ignoring everything, he walked towards the dorms, taking note as his headache went down the closer he got to the building. With every step, it felt like it was alleviating a little bit of the pressure stuck in his head. 

Then, finally, he was inside the building, and all he felt was a dull ache. Sounds no longer pounded in his head and he could look outside without being blinded by the light. 

Hunk was pacing near the staircase, a worried expression on his face as he typed on his phone. Thank god, Keith really did not want to have to find their actual room. 

The taller man looks over to him, an almost relieved looks comes over his face, “Oh thank god, I need a second opinion.” He practically bounds over to Keith, “Lance keeps on getting really sick, like, can’t move migraine sick. Am I supposed to take him to the doctor, or just let him work it out, he says he’s fine, butireallydon’tbelievehim.” 

Oh my god, it couldn’t be. 

“Hey, Keith, are you alright, please say I don’t have two sick people on my hands, oh god, you said earlier that-” Keith could already see him start to freak out, and tried to comfort him, with an incredibly awkward pat that lasted about three second too long. 

“I’m fine. He’ll be fine.” Keith tried to put up a deadpan expression, pulling out a sigh after his words. 

If he could scream at this very second, Keith would, because everything he thought he knew in the world was gone. 

Only important people got to hold that honor, people that were going to make a difference. Those people would meet this person, and then it would be perfect from the start, and they would be perfect for each other, and never fight, and get some bitch ass awesome powers along with it. 

Keith couldn’t have a soulmate. He was too loud, too imperfect. He wouldn’t do anything with his life, everyone in his life made sure of it. 

And Keith’s soulmate could not have been Lance. But for some reason, he was. That jackass that wouldn’t stop talking was soulmates with him, and for some reason, the world was just that cruel. 

“Uhh, Keith?” Hunk looks over cautiously, a look of fear in his eyes, his phone held up almost to his ear, “Could you come back to the dorms with me, just to, like, get a second opinion. I really don’t know what to do?” 

He tries to muster up something thats a smile, but Keith’s pretty sure it’s just creepy, “Yeah, let’s go,” 

With Hunk leading them through the dorms, every step feels like a bit of pain relieved. What little was left of the headache has now just turned into a dull ache, barely registering in the back of his head. Something still feels off, but Keith has an idea of what that is, now. 

“Here,” Hunk pushes open a door, with a few dozen stickers covering the outside of it. Inside, it was somewhat of a wreck. There were two desks, both equally covered in work, papers, notebooks, and pencils everywhere. There was clothes strewn across the room, beds weren’t made, and bits of food wrappers were everywhere, along with actual food. 

“Sorry, it’s kind of a wreck.” The taller man says, rubbing the back of his neck, “I haven’t really had time to clean, Lance usually does that, but with everything-” 

“Keith?” Sitting on the bed, covered in blankets, Lance turns towards them. There were large grey eye bags on his face, along with a few tissues littered on his bed. He couldn't be serious, this didn’t actually cause sickness, could it? 

Lost in thought, Keith tried racking his brain, Shiro didn’t say a lot, just about the headache when they first met, and then being unable to leave one another’s side. Oh god, that would suck ass. He wouldn’t be able to leave Lance’s side. He wouldn’t ever be able to actually study or work on maneuvers or do anything, all because of this dumb universe.

“Keith, you there?” Lance asks again, waving a hand in front of his face, “You sure you’re not still sick? You look kinda-” 

“Shut the hell up.” And that headache was back. Lance seemed to wince, pulling a hand up to his head, feeling whatever Keith was feeling. “Sorry.” His voice was meek, almost too quiet. 

The Cuban looked confused, tilting his head, almost like a puppy, “For what? I have this great migraine that keeps on coming back, and unless you’re causing it, which, if you are, I have some words for you-” 

“Well, uhh,” Hunk says, taking another step back towards the door, he had slowly been inching backwards, away from whatever was going on in front of him, “I brought Keith here to get a second opinion. You really weren’t looking good a few minutes ago, dude.” 

Lance just smiles, directing what little charm he had towards Hunk, “I’m feeling absolutely superb, my dude, my bro, mi hermano,” turning slightly, looking actually happy towards Keith, a small sigh escapes Lance, “Weren’t you feeling sick too, though? That’s like pitting two-”

“I don’t want to hear the rest of that.” It stops him in his tracks, the small smile still on Lance’s face, but now turning into more of a smirk. 

Oh god, those dimples. His face was just so, incredible, unbelievable. 

And then it wasn’t. 

“Aww, babe, are you sure? It had a pretty good euphemism, if I do say so myself.” 

Once again, Lance was very punchable. 

Turning his attention to Hunk, who was still trying to leave, Keith deadpans, “He looks fine, I’m going home.” 

“Wait-” Hunk blocks his path out, “Can I get your number, just in case?” He holds out his phone, already in the contacts. Sighing, Keith types it all out, and hands him back his phone, with one glance back at Lance. 

That asshole can suffer, for all he cares. 

And then, Lance meets his eyes, and something inside him tells him to stay. To just sit, and hold him, and do nothing, and that would be alright. He should, it would be fine, he really doesn't have to leave. Even just holding Lance’s hand would be alright, to make sure he’s alright. 

“Aww, babe, I didn’t take you as-” 

Keith slams the door behind him. His footsteps echo through the halls, as he tries to get away as fast as he can. His breath is fast, his head is already pounding. Everything gets too bright, and he’s really not sure where he is, but then his scooter is in front of him. 

Muscle memory takes over as he follows the trail home, the wind whipping towards him physically hurting, everything’s too much, but, all he had to do-

He just needed to get home, and then it would be alright. It would be alright. 

The chasm is in front of him one second, and then the next he’s putting his scooter up, watching as it falls to the ground, and he trips into the house, the door not even locked. 

Everything feels heavy and wrong. So very wrong. He can’t breath. 

Something’s buzzing his pocket, and with shaky hands, Keith pulls it out. His phone’s too bright, but the words stand out. 

_Unknown Number: Hey Keith, this is Hunk!_

_Unknown Number: Lance isn’t feeling good again, what am i supposed to do?_

_Unknown Number: Its getting worse_

_Unknown Number: Keith what am i supposed to do_

_Unknown Number: he just asked for you, he’s barely conscious rn_

_Unknown Number: Lance is really dramatic but i think he’s serious_

_Unknown Number: whats your location_

_Keith: below chasm, north of school_

_Keith: I’m not feeling good either, hurry_

_Unknown Number: wait wait wait wait_

_Unknown Number: no thats not good_

_Unknown Number: What am i supposed to do_

_Unknown Number: Hospital?_

_Keith: Bring him here, I’ll explain_

_Unknown Number: Keith, seriously_

Ignoring the rest of the texts, Keith sends Hunk his exact location, really hoping his shitty service will pull through. His phone drops down, hitting his chest heavily. 

He can’t tell how much time passes, but slowly, his headache lessens enough that he can actually stand up, and with his entire body feeling too heavy, he’s about ready to just fall flat on the ground. 

But, like the determined bastard he is, Keith pushes through, going towards the shelf on his wall. There were only three pictures, one of the desert, with Keith wearing a helmet, dust flying behind him. He couldn’t have been older than 4. 

Next to it was a picture of him and his father, his father standing next to him, giant smiles on both their faces. Keith had his father’s helmet on, the giant number 3 on it, and in smaller writing, the fire department he had worked for. It was nearly impossible to read on the picture, the quality was horrible. 

Then, a picture of Shiro and Keith, taken by Shiro after his first day of school. Keith had taken off his uniform halfway through the day, instead wearing the jacket that Shiro had brought, because that bastard knew him too well, and Keith would rather go shirtless than wear that dumb uniform. 

If only he could see him now.

Shiro would know what to do, he always did. 

_So, me and Matt, we’re soulmates.” Keith almost gasped, a questioning look clearly on his face. Shiro looked anxious, a nervousness that Keith hadn’t seen before. “It’s, well, it’s really rare. We found out during training.”_

_“Soulmates aren’t real, asshole. And you have a boyfriend.”_

_Shiro just sighed, “Not anymore, he didn’t really, uh, take it well.” He rubbed the back of his neck, “It's really rare, you probably heard the story at some point. Soulmates supposed to change the world, they’re not common, and most people who have soulmates never talk about them, it's too dangerous. But I trust you.”_

_“I know it's strange, but you have to trust me, Keith,” The older man sighs again, “It was unbelievable. The moment we found out we were soulmates, it was… almost out of a fairytale. I could just spend the rest of my life staring at him, and that would be alright, and he felt the same way. It took a while to figure out, but” A almost starstruck look takes over Shiro as he just stares into space, “He just completes me.”_

If only it was that easy. 

His headache is slowly getting easier to deal with, still persistent, but getting to the point where he no longer feels like he’s on the verge of passing out. So, with heavy feet and a sad ache in his chest, Keith pulls down the pictures. He doesn’t want Hunk or Lance questioning what they are, and really doesn’t want to have to explain anything to them.

Trudging through the small house, he drops them off on the unused bed, dust has settled around the room. Keith never really used it, his old bed was meant for a 5 year old, and even if he was still short, he wasn’t that short. And this bed, it was his dad’s, it didn’t feel right to use it.

Slowly, he leaves the room, shutting the door behind him, and walking back into his kitchen, struggling to grab what little food he had left. It was on the top shelf. 

“I‘m feeling fine, Hunk! Seriously, I’m fine now.” Keith just sighs. Through the house, he spots the pair trudging along, with Hunk practically carrying a complaining Lance.

“You said that last time, and you weren’t.” 

“But I’m fine now! We can head back to the dorms! Please, look, its so ugly. He should def repaint this, oooh we could do that Hunk!” 

Having heard enough of this conversation, Keith trudges through the house, stopping right before the door, hand on the handle. 

He really didn’t have to let them in. Or let Lance in, he could just sit outside. That’d be perfectly fine. 

With a heavy sigh, Keith pushes the door open. 

Hunk was practically hauling Lance forwards, and Lance was trying his hardest to push Hunk backwards. His face was bright red, whatever eye bags he had looked significantly worse. But, with how much fight he was putting up, he was probably feeling better. 

“Hey Keith, we will be leaving now.” Lance says, a bitchy tone in his voice as he tries to pull Hunk, who probably had 50 pounds at about 4 inches on him, in the other direction. Hunk just stood his ground, holding both him and Lance in place, while Lance was just moving the sand underneath him.

With an almost sad, but mostly just questioning look in his face, Hunk looks like he’s about to say something, and Keith cuts him off before he can ask any questions, “Come in.” This was going to suck ass, why did he even give Hunk his location. 

Pulling Lance, who’s still struggling, with him, Hunk walks into the house, the wood creaking under everyone's weight, and the door shuts with a loud creak. 

“What type of hell hole did you find this house in?” was the first thing out of Lance’s mouth. Keith ignores him. 

“So, uhh,” Hunk starts to ask, glancing around the house, “you said that you’d explain?” 

“Later,” 

“Huh,” oh my god could Lance actually shut his mouth for five seconds? “So you got Hunk to kidnap me, bring me to this broke old house, and are now going to murder us? Great, exciting. Make it quick.” 

“I didn’t-” 

“Lance, you were asking for Keith.” Hunk says, almost as deadpan as Keith felt,” when you were practically passed out, you kept on asking for him. That’s why we’re here.” 

Deadpanning towards his friend, and gesturing wildly, Lance yells, very loudly, “Hunk, my bro, my dude, you know better than to trust whatever my dramatic ass says.” His eyes widen, eyebrows arching, “And now I feel fine, so we should head back to the dorms before curfew.” 

Keith’s mind is somewhere in the gutter, wondering what would make Lance actually shut up. 

“But Keith said he knew what was going on, so we should stay here.”

“I don't care if he’s jesus, right now, I want to go sleep in my own bed,”

Having heard enough of whatever was going on again, Keith cut them off before either one could say anything again, seriously, these two were dramatic as hell. “We keep on getting sick when we’re far apart. Every time I leave campus, or when we fight.” 

Lance’s eyes widen. 

“Did you feel something when I punched you, like-”

“Like I felt every single emotion at once and then it was just, like, okay, even though we were getting yelled at.” He had a small expression on his face, something shadowed by fear and curiosity, and when he looked at Keith, Keith could care less about anything else in the entire world. 

“ shit,” 

Keith jumped, something just fell outside, and that was somebody’s voice. Somebody had followed those two here. 

More grumbling was outside, mixed in with cursing and what sounded like somebody tripping and falling on top of something. Reaching into his pocket, Keith pulled out his pocket knife. Wide eyed and following behind him were Lance and Hunk, both looking shaken. 

Careful to be quiet, Keith opened his door, and held out his knife, glancing around the front of the house. To the left was a small form, they’d tripped over the scooter and fell, their knee was bleeding. They were muttering curses, patting down their knee, probably trying to stop the bleeding. 

“What the hell are you doing?” 

The figure looked up. They were short, with messily cut blond hair and glasses. “Following Lance and Hunk.”

“Pidge?” Hunks asks, pushing past Keith, “Oh god are you okay dude? That doesn’t look good.” 

Pidge shrugs, holding a hand over their knee, “Tripped over the damn scooter, who the hell just drops something that expensive there, seriously. Fuck, oww,” Gesturing towards the house, Hunk goes towards Pidge, helping them up, carrying what had to be 90 pounds and 4’9 body into the house.

Asshole didn’t even ask. 

Following the trio inside his own house, Keith watches as Hunk sets him down on the couch, blood already dripping down their leg and covering their hand. “Do you have a rag?” Without responding, Keith goes to grab one. 

Lance catches him before he gets back into the room with the others, Keith can’t read his face, “What- what did you mean by, all that? Does that actually mean we are- you know, that?” 

“I don’t know.” Keith shrugs, “Probably,” 

“Seriously, that’s it?” Lance exclaims, “Soulmates are supposed to be this whole thing and you’re just-” Keith pushes him back, giving Lance a nasty look. “Asshole, really, now I have a headache again. Seriously.” 

Hunk turns towards the pair when Keith pushes into the room, a concerned look on his face, “Thank god. You’ll be fine, Pidge, it should stop bleeding in no time.” Still looking concerned, Hunk goes to talk to Lance, who’s still looking pissed and staring at Keith. Asshole.

The guy sitting on his couch, holding the rag tightly on to their cut, Pidge, stares towards Keith. Keith stares back, unwilling to look away, he’s not giving that up that easily. 

Without looking away, Pidge starts talking, “So, you’re the famous Keith. Didn’t take you as one to be friends with Lance.” 

“I’m not,” 

“Well, avoiding that whole mess, what the hell is all this?” Pidge smirks, still not looking away. The bastard. “You live in the middle of nowhere?” 

“It’s only three miles from the school.” 

“Yeah,” Pidge quirks up their eyebrows, “ I did say middle of nowhere, didn’t I?”

“Asshole.” 

“Aww, did I hurt your feelings? Bitch.” 

Something loud starts making sound outside, making both Keith and Pidge look away to look through the window. A giant glowing white ball of something, looking much too close to a spaceship, is shooting through the atmosphere. 

“What the fuck is that?” Lance pushes past him, leaving a concerned looking Hunk staring from across the room. 

Whatever it was, they were about to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

Being the fun group of people they were, Keith was about ready to stab himself. It had only been five minutes, but every second seemed to drag on and on. It started with Hunk was saying that Pidge shouldn’t come, then Pidge was arguing with Hunk. The argument felt like it took eternity, but when it was all finally sorted out, they realized they only had two scooters. 

Keith’s, and Pidge’s. 

And there was no way in hell that Keith was letting anyone else drive his scooter.

Hunk was trying to figure out who should be with who when Lance practically threw himself onto the larger man, dramatically announcing, “I have chosen, and nothing will change my mind.” Oh my god, shut the fuck up you overgrown theater student.

“Lance, one of these things can’t hold both you and me. It might, and I say _might_ , hold me and Pidge.” 

Pidge started screeching, “I’m not that small!" Keith's almost feels like his ears are going to bleed. Seriously, nothing on this planet needs to be that loud. 

“Yes you are, sorry Pidge.” Hunk gave his attention back to the pair, a nervous look in his face as he addressed them both, “These are only supposed to hold 150 pounds, we might hit half speed with 200,” His lips pinch together, as his hand anxiously rubs his sleeve.

Keith sighed, almost resigned with his fate, “So that means-”

“Hell _no_! I’m not riding with him, Hunk, seriously, you can’t even-,” 

Twenty minutes later, Keith was on his scooter, Lance clinging to him like a backpack. 

His soulmate was shrieking into his ear, almost on purpose Keith wouldn't put it past him. He needed to shut up before Keith finally had enough, and threw them off a cliff. Honestly, that didn't sound too bad right now.

Besides them, Hunk and Pidge were riding just fine. Hunk was driving, his hands steadily holding the steering wheel, he was almost too tense, Keith was pretty sure he hadn't been on a scooter besides in training before. Pidge knew how to drive, they were pretty good at it, too, but, according to lance, and to Keith's absolute delight, Pidge was dubbed too chaotic to drive by their instructors. 

That took a _lot._ Keith wasn't even dubbed that bad, and he had points knocked off nearly ever exercise for something dumb, and usually out of his control. He was definitely going to make sure Pidge got a chance to drive Lance around.

Slowly pushing onto the brakes, Keith slows to a stop in front of a canyon. From his spot, he can see the alien ship over the horizon. They had to hurry, the sun was already barely hanging over the mountains, the sky already darkening. They might have an hour, if they are lucky. 

lance pushed forwards, almost hitting Keith off balance just to look forwards, so, as the amazing person he is, Keith pushes on the gas.

Lance was shrieking, again, eyes widening as he looked down the black pitt below them, “You asshole, we could have almost died!” He didn't take his eyes off the pit below them, hands shaking as he held on shakily to Keith. Keith tried to ignore the face that lance almost leaned into his back, that his shaking stopped, and that his soulmate sighed almost happily.

Pidge was laughing at them. 

Ignoring them all and scoffing, Keith looked down towards whatever had fallen out of the sky. A group of Garrison soldiers had already taken control of the area, with a tent, barriers, and hazmat suits. They looked ridiculous, but, their getup's only added to his anxiety. He had only seen them pull out those suits once, for an alien thing that had fallen out of the sky. He wasn't technically supposed to see it, but knowing Shiro had its positives.

“Is that a ship?” Hunk’s almost leaning over his scooter, squinting against the sun, “It doesn’t look like one of ours,”

“An alien ship, almost definitely,” Pidge agrees, nodding their head, “Let's go investigate. 

Gasping, in normal dramatic fashion, Lance almost yells at Pidge, “No! What if the alien down there could kill us? They’re wearing hazmat suits for a reason. Seriously, Pidge, use your brain for once.” Lance gestures again, mouth open ready to say something again.

“I second Pidge,” all eyes land on Keith, Lance is about ready to kill him. “Let’s go investigate.”

Kicking his scooter into gear, with a screaming Lance holding onto him, Keith plunges over the chasm. For a second, panic flashes in his mind, will they make this jump? He was barely able to hit ¾ of his normal speed, and even the scooter’s had a limit for how much weight they could successfully work with. 

And then, they’re hitting the ground, without the normal smoothness Keith was used to but with a shaky determination from the scooter, and the sound of it hitting the ground, scraping a rock. Lance was going to be fixing that. This paint job took too long and was too expensive.

Lance was shaking, clinging onto him fully. “Oh, my god.” His voice was shaking, in an almost uncharacteristic way, “We could have died,” 

Sighing, Keith's voice is monotone, almost pissed off sounding, “But we didn’t.” Besides them, Pidge is yelling happily, Hunk looking almost green as Pidge shoots them over the canyon, landing even more rockily than them. “Come on,” His scooter barely manages to push forwards, sputtering for a second, before pushing up their speeds. 

Lance is holding onto him again, as the ship comes closer, any shakiness he had before had disappeared, melting away with the simple touch. He almost leaned into it, shutting his eyes, for just a second. 

“What’s the plan?” Pidge asks, moving in more closely towards the pair, “I want to see what’s inside that tent, maybe the ship.”

“The ship looks too risky, I keep seeing people go in and not out.” Hunk adds in. “We’d need a distraction, then maybe one of us can get into the tent. And take pictures and steal things, preferably me.” 

Keith has to agree, at least for the first part. He wasn’t particularly paying attention to the tent, keeping his eyes fully on the ship. Too many soldiers had gone in, wearing full hazmat suits, and only three had come back out, all carrying things into the tent before heading back in. 

Then, a brilliant thought hits Keith, "Pidge should be the distraction. The scooters can run easier with just your weight, and we can take pictures."

After a moment of hesitation, Pidge agrees, “I’ll be the distraction,” A small grin on their face, “My driving’s too chaotic, they won’t be able to catch me. I’ll shake them, then head back to that broken down thing you call a house.”

The rest of the plan goes as so: Hunk would wait back where they are currently, as Keith runs into the tent and Lance gets another scooter, that Lance swore he saw. He better not be lying, or he will be walking back. 

Pidge waves them off, a smirk of excitement on their face, and the scooter revs forwards, blasting away from them with a sound that Keith didn’t even know it could make. 

That child was terrifying, and amazing at the exact same time. 

Dust was picking up behind them, they were already rocketing away, catching the eyes of soldiers and everyone standing outside the tent. Keith could see the panic in their eyes, even from how far away he was. They started picking up the pace, grabbing something to ride on and chasing after Pidge. 

Who then started to scream and circle the camp to the other side. Oh my god they were so insane, Keith really wanted to talk to them later, that would be an interesting conversation. With a flurry of excitement that Keith hadn’t had for a while, he and Lance run forwards, judging the area to be safe enough now. Their footsteps are heavy, but with all the other sounds, it doesn’t matter. 

The two separate, Lance running towards the scooter he saw, he better actually grab one, Keith was legitimately going to make him walk back. Keith gave him one last glance, and started running even faster towards the tent. 

Even from outside the tent, he could smell the sterile smell, like something that was cleaned excessively. It was such a terrible smell, Keith almost gagged, it made him hate them a little bit more. Pushing the tent open, to find it filled to the brim with random items, and a body in the center. The body was breathing, it looked vaguely human, with an arm missing, and a streak of white on his hair, and-

Oh shit that was Shiro. 

Keith rushes forwards, ignoring everything else in the room. Shiro was alive, in front of him. He didn’t look too good, his breathing was taxed, his arm looked painful. But that soul mark, Keith would never be able to forget that soul mark. 

There was the sound of fighting outside the tent, Keith hoped to god that it wasn’t Pidge trying to fight. 

Light flooded into the tent, Keith turned, fear and adrenaline pushing through his body as a scientist gets into the tent. They make eye contact, and for a second, Keith is calm. 

Then he rushes forwards, relying on muscle memory and trying to push down the adrenaline. The scientist goes down hard when Keith’s fist connects with his temple. He hopes that he’s knocked out. If one thing could go well today, this would be it. 

Hopefully.

He makes a split second decision, and regrets it almost immediately. Shiro’s on a moving table, right? So might as well push. 

Unlocking the brakes on the wheels, Keith pushes the table forwards, barreling through the front of the tent. Lance is off to the side, blood dripping down his face but he does have a scooter. Lucky bastard. 

“Lance!” The Cuban turns towards him as he revs his scooter, pausing mid action. He hopefully understands what Keith is asking, because he comes barreling towards him, full speed, barely not slamming into the table. “Pull it. Don’t hurt him.” 

“Isn’t that Shiro? Like the pilot, I thought he went missing.” His eyes widen, as he looks Shiro over again, eyes stopping at his chest, at his soulmark. 

“Not right now.” His soulmate could not have been any more of an asshole. This was serious! Shiro was hurt, and they needed to get out of here now. Lance nods, luckily understanding, and grabs onto the table. Luckily, the desert was mostly flat, he’d hopefully be fine. Keith could only hope that Lance wasn’t as bad at driving a scooter as he was flying a plane. 

Oh shit this was a horrible idea. 

Sprinting forwards, not able to keep up with Lance but trying, Keith runs towards the scooter and Hunk. This was going to be difficult. One of them had to ride with a knocked out Shiro, the other had to ride with Hunk.

They didn’t have time to make this decision, though.

Keith’s panting, feeling the heat of the sun, but pushes through. Grabbing Shiro, he positions him onto the scooter, and gets on. Lance and Hunk look confused, but Keith waves them off. “We need to get going, Pidge can only hold them off for so long.” 

Nodding in agreement, both getting onto the scooter, Hunk seemingly just giving Lance the front, not even bothering to argue.

Pushing through the desert, they manage to avoid any people from the Garrison. It’s a desert, there’s a lot of space, so within twenty minutes, Keith gets off his scooter, barely managing to hold Shiro, who had somehow gotten even taller and heavier.

Hunk rushes forwards, grabbing Shiro from Keith, and walks into the house. He pauses, swallowing harshly before looking down towards him again. “This is Shiro Takashi.” 

“Oh my god,” Lance exclaims, “He’s like my idol. I can’t believe- and his soulmark! I didn’t even know he had a soulmate. That’s so cool!” 

Keith sighs, running a hand through his hair. Shiro never wanted anyone to know, but he couldn't really stop them now, he could stop them from knowing who, at the very least.

What he really needed was a break from them, but that wasn’t going to happen soon, unfortunately. They had to wait for Pidge, and then it would be a whole new set of questions. 

Today really sucked ass. 

His eyes drifted down to Shiro’s soulmark, the two hands grasping towards each other. Shiro had always made fun of it, said it looked so desperate. They couldn’t understand why they had a mark like that. Keith couldn’t either. 

Or at least, till now.

Even after the two bonded, they had a hard time separating, never really wanting to be apart for very long, and after they were apart, they would sit on the couch together and just hold each other, and wouldn’t get up for anything. Keith had to bring both of them food and convince them to actually go do things more than once. It was terrifying that someone could be that attached to someone else. But right now, Shiro was on Earth, and Matt was who knows where. It was a recipe for disaster.

Their grasping hands made so much more sense now.

“Hey Keith,” Hunks voice cut through the silence, “I think I see Pidge outside. Me and Lance are going to go take a walk.” his voice cut deeper, a sad look in his eyes, “Are you going to be alright?” 

“Yes.” 

With one final look towards Keith, Hunk pulls Lance out of the house.

Quickly going to grab a shirt, Keith maneuvers it onto Shiro, feeling a deep sadness.

Shiro was just so… off. He had always had this ethereal feeling to him, he knew he was going to do something, and pushed himself as far as he could go. But now, as he lay there, Keith felt defeated. 

Keith wanted the soulmark to be the biggest issue, for something as trivial as that to be the think hitting him the hardest, but right now, he couldn't stop himself from hurting as he looked over the rest of Shiro's body. His arm was gone, replaced by a prosthetic. The skin between it looked burned, damaged, so inflamed it was painful to even look at. Bruises covered his body, injuries and scars everywhere. 

Keith was incredibly glad that Hunk had pulled Pidge and Lance away, he didn’t want any of them to see this. Shiro didn’t deserve to be seen like this. This man was amazing, he did amazing things and was going to do amazing things, but right now….

Tears were falling down Keith’s face before he even knew what was happening. Pain flooded through him, as he collapsed next to the couch. It shouldn't be like this. This wasn’t right. Everything just felt so wrong. 

Without warning, pain shocking his system, something slammed into his head, hitting him aside. 

Shiro was awake. He was panting, fear filled his eyes, his nearly pitch black eyes. His hand’s were curled into fists, standing on shaky legs in a defensive pose. 

“Shiro,” The man turned towards him, eyes narrowing on him, “What happened?” He moves forwards, fists curling even tighter, Keith can hear the clenching of metal, the moving of gears. “Shiro, it’s just me!” He takes another step, while Keith pulls his knees inward. 

Oh god, this can’t be happening. 

He can’t move his legs, as Shiro only moves more close to him, no recognition in his fear shot eyes. 

“It’s me, Shiro, please,” The man pauses, only stopping for a second at his name, before he’s moving again, pulling Keith up from the ground by the front of his shirt. “Shiro, please!” 

His entire body is shaking at this point, from fear and adrenaline, Keith isn’t sure what would be worse though, dying right now, or having to fight Shiro. He’s not even sure he could. Shiro had always been like an older brother, he wouldn’t even be able to stop him. 

“Shiro, please, it’s keith,” His voice was defeated, as the older man simply pulls him up higher, almost to his own height now. 

And then, he pauses, his grip loosening, enough for Keith to fall onto the ground, staring up in shock. His voice is muted, his throat dry and scratchy, “Keith?” Eyes widening, he pauses, staring down towards the scared Keith, “What happened? Are you okay?”

Dad mode activated, thank god.

Swallowing harshly, Keith attempts to stand up, almost falling over as he starts to feel his knees give out underneath him. Oh god, this wasn’t going good. “Fine, headache, anxiety, sorry,” if Shiro is still the same person, he’d understand. 

God, Keith really hopes that this is actually Shiro and not some weird shapeshifter. That would really ruin his night, maybe his entire year. “Do you have your pills? Blanket? I’ll go grab them, sit down.” Okay, this is him. 

Trying really hard to pull himself together for Shiro, Keith pulls his expression into a neutral, which might scare Shiro more but at this point, that’s all he can even fathom to try, it wasn’t going to end up good if he can’t pull his shit together. 

“I’m fine,” His legs shake, but with Shiro holding him, he stands up, “I’ll be fine. Sorry, you should sit down.” He gestures towards the couch. Shiro takes a second to look over the room, curiosity over flowing his features. 

“Why are you back… here? I thought that you were living at the Garrison?” 

“Was.” 

Silence fills the room. Keith shouldn’t just let Shiro stand there, something obviously happened, something bad, but… he wants this so desperately to just be like before, he can’t even attempt to force Shiro to sit down, instead letting the older man stand, looking over the room once again. 

Shiro clears his throat, “I’ll fill you in more later. I don’t think now is the time.” Shit, wait, no, Keith takes a shaky breath, staring up to Shiro, “Is it only you?” 

“A few people are here, they’re out somewhere. Too far away. This headache sucks.” 

Shiro just laughs, a good, hearty laugh, but his voice is still too scratchy, and it just sounds wrong, “If you think that is bad, I promise you, it’s nothing like the first time Matt and I separated, that was-” 

Adrenaline floods his system, Keith didn’t even think- Shiro would be fine with it, he knew better than anyone Keith could talk to, but he couldn’t even think about telling him, for no reason. Anxiety took over, making his knees shake and everything started to unfocus, close sounds turned distant. 

A hand was on his shoulder, pulling him back to reality, “Deep breathes, alright? I have you.” 

Keith didn’t deserve him. 

“Shiro,” Keith faced the ground, voice quiet, oh god, he shouldn’t be doing this. This was deep, deep shit, and honestly, he really shouldn’t, “What if I did, understand, a little bit?” Realization dawned on his face, brightening almost instantly. “He’s an asshole, Shiro, I can’t stand him. Every time he speaks I swear, I’m going to break his nose one day.” 

“How did you meet?” A small smirk was still on his face, though slightly diminished. 

Swallowing harshly, Keith tries to look anywhere but Shiro, “I punched him in the jaw.” 

“And?”

“And nothing!” Keith yelled, flinching at himself, “I thought he was okay for a second, and then every time he does anything, I have to stop myself from punching him! He looked so… and then it just went south cause he’s an absolute ass and I have anger issues!”

Shiro just laughed, patting Keith’s shoulder as he continued to laugh through Keith’s pain, “Really? Oh my god, that’s amazing. You belong together.” 

Grumbling, Keith curses out Shiro, who just laughs harder.

He was going to get killed one day, and Keith would definitely not be the person behind it.

“Well, I’m proud of you, kinda, get your head out of your ass, seriously, and then I’ll be more proud of you. How far away are they right now?” 

Squinting, Keith tries to gauge the pain. It had been worse between the Garrison and his home, but right now it was getting pretty damn close to that same feeling, and Lance was going to get his ass beat if he actually thought that was a good idea. 

Little shit needed to think things through slightly better, Keith could almost swear the pain was getting worse still, too. 

“Almost same distance from Garrison, I think. It’s only been a day, I can’t gauge it very well.”

Shiro has a look of amusement in his eyes as Keith says that, but bites his lip and reels it back in, “You should call him back, you have his number, right?” The silence is answer enough for Shiro, “I swear, I’m going to lock you two into a closet till you work everything out. Let’s go find them, then, can’t really have you two separate for too long.”

A ding sound comes from across the room, Shiro tenses, reaching to his side for a weapon that isn’t there. Keith’s phone lights up again, texts rushing in more quickly now. 

_Hunk: We found something, like, big_

_Hunk: dunno if we’re too far away yet, Lance isn’t saying anything so maybe hurry up and come to our location_

_Hunk has given you his location: Accept?_

_Hunk: Lance isn’t looking really good, hurry_

_Hunk:this is Pidge, hunk freaked the fuck out hurry up before i beat your skinny ass_

_Hunk: you have five minutes punk_

_Keith:Hurrying_

Explaining the situation to Shiro, and feeling his headache get worse, the two rush out of the house, staring at the single scooter. 

“I’ll drive.”

“Hell no, I’m not getting motion sick just because you think wind flowing through your hair is sick. And,” Shiro enunciates, reminding Keith just a pinch too much of Lance, “You’re too far away from your soulmate right now.” 

“I’m still driving.” 

Shiro ended up driving. 

Pushing through the desert, trying to pinpoint using the headache while on a scooter going 80mph while having your brother yell at you was not a fun combination. Keith felt like crying, but, they did figure out a direction, kinda.

They were now heading in a direction that wasn’t making his head feel worse, so hopefully the right direction. They were definitely going to see. 

Unfortunately, the location Hunk was at was no longer available, going off his texts before, they were in a cave, and unluckily, the area they were in had multiple caves, none of which had service anywhere inside of them. It was just getting better and better. 

Keith started recognizing the area, pinpointing it all slowly, before nudging Shiro in the direction of the nearest cave, it was about two miles to the west of the Garrison, not too far away from his house but an uncomfortable amount of space between the two soulmates regardless. 

Keith used to be jealous of Shiro and his soulmate, compared to what he’d seen with Shiro’s previous boyfriends and girlfriends, the pair really got along the best. They anticipated everything the other was about to do, they cuddled nonstop, it had made Keith want to barf and run away, but after living in the Garrison, Keith realized that was what he really wanted. 

He didn’t want to live alone forever, no matter how much everyone at the Garrison made him want to shoot his brains out, he wanted to live with somebody that cared about him as much as Shiro and his soulmate cared for each other. 

But, he had convinced himself that he would never have that, that he wasn’t special enough to do that and he would just be a normal person and be stuck with somebody that was never really perfect for him. 

Hah, if only he was so lucky.

Pulling up before the cave, Shiro sends a questioning look to Keith, “I didn’t know there were any caves around here.”

“There’s 7, that I've found. Most are disgusting, and full of bats. This one was almost okay, nothing special about it. It only goes about 100 feet down, and then just ends.” 

So, why were they exploring this cave? They might have just been bored assholes exploring an area they knew for almost certainty they shouldn’t be, or at least, Hunk and Lance knew, but why? There wasn’t anything exciting. 

They both share a look, and start heading down into the cave. The echoes of the others start bouncing around, as Keith and Shiro start walking faster. Their footprints are appearing more and more, as the group was getting closer.

They could hear the shrieks of bats, and the stench of them. Eww, there was a reason Keith didn’t go into these caves anymore, why did it have to be a cave. 

They turn a corner, and get greeted by Pidge yelling at Lance and Hunk. 

“If Lance wasn’t feeling good, then why the hell are you out here?” they shrieked, Hunk flinched, “There’s a difference between stupidity and pure insolence and I swear, I’m going to kill both of you, slowly, and no one will know who did it because they won’t know what shits you both were.” 

“But-”

Shiro cleared his throat, drawing the scared attention of Lance and Hunk, and the angry glance of Pidge, which quickly shifts to curiosity, “Sorry to interrupt, but we should head back. It’s getting late, and we need to recon.” 

Hunk nods, quickly trying to escape, but Lance grabs his arm, almost getting himself dragged along with, “Wait, please, I saw something.” 

“There’s nothing in this cave, Lance,” Keith sighs, wanting to slam his head into a wall, “I’ve checked multiple times.”

“I swear I saw something, please, just, give me five minutes.” 

Shiro nods, and unfortunately, he’s like 7 feet tall and buff with a capital Damn, so he wins all arguments. 

That doesn’t mean Pidge isn’t a little shit still, and that Hunk doesn’t try to escape. 

“But why does-” Hunk starts scooting back, pushing himself up to the wall, hiding in the shadows as he pushes away, “he get away,” Hunks getting even farther away as Pidge bitches. 

Shiro and him make eye contact, and they both nod. Keith walks towards Pidge, lifting the little child off the ground, instantly shutting them up. 

Well, that was one way to do it, even if Shiro’s about to yell at him. 

And then he does, while Lance is still pressing along the walls, muttering something to himself as he almost looks like he’s about to cry, Keith can feel the emotions practically radiating off his soulmate, the determination, the frustration, tears almost fell down his own face, but he managed to keep it together. 

Keith keeps watching Lance, as he pushes on the random cave walls, and then, everything starts lighting up blue. If he wasn’t there himself, he wouldn’t have believed it, he barely even believes it now, while its right in front of his face. 

The wall starts turning blue, small scribbles of what has to be writing filling up the wall, looking almost like hieroglyphics. 

But, one thing stands out in the entire mass of scribbles and blue. A blue lion, taking up at least 10 feet of space. 

Lance’s eyes turn blue, Keith can almost feel as his emotions just hit mute, and the cuban starts walking away from their group. 

“Lance?”

“What’s going on?”  
  


Lance keeps walking away, heading farther from the group. The blue light was lighting up everything in front of him, so they could all see when he placed his hand on the stone, and it opened up, almost magically. 

In front of them was a giant blue lion, covered by a stasis field. What the hell was going on, seriously. 

Broken from whatever trance was over him, Lance stumbles ,staring up towards the lion with a confused look over his face, and then starts walking more forwards. What the hell was happening. 

Keith was there, and he wasn't even sure.

Lance is still walking forward, his footsteps echoing through the whole cave. The blue field surrounding it seemed to melt away at his touch, shooting into the cave ceiling above them and dissipating into nothing. 

What the actual- 

Lance doesn’t stop. He walks all the way to the giant lion thing, his hand resting gently on the side. His eyes start to glow blue even brighter, Keith didn’t even realize they were glowing again till the light illuminated the whole area. 

The lion opens up. Keith might be having an aneurysm, because his soulmate just walked into a giant lion that’s probably haunted. What the hell is going on? 

Shiro starts walking forwards, a walk that starts slow but ends with him sprinting forwards. The lion starts to make noises, a whirring, like an engine. Oh shit. Keith’s sprinting now.

Everything flashes bright blue, and Keith’s laying on something hard, a blue metal. His eyes open blearily, everything's still too bright. Pidge is barely opening their eyes, Hunk is knocked out on the ground not too far from him. Shiro is almost standing, a look of fear in his eyes.

And then, Keith’s eyes drift towards Lance. He’s sitting on a blue chair, his eyes shining just as brightly, the window out front…

It couldn’t have been. 

It was all empty space, the deep dark abyss of space around them. Holy shit. Keith couldn’t breathe, something felt so wrong. 

Shiro didn’t look much better, his fists tightened to the point his knuckles were white, tightening over the seat Lance was sitting on. Keith just felt so… overwhelmed, too much was happening. 

In a hurried glance around, he sees them approaching something, and quickly. It looked like a castle. 

A castle in space. Keith kinda wonders what god is fucking with them now, because this really can’t be real. Did he get high off fumes? Is this some weird ass dream? Is he finally dead? He kinda feels dead. There was always a small feeling, ever since he and Lance had touched, but now, he couldn’t feel that at all. 

He was reaching for his chest, trying to breathe. There was noise around him but he couldn’t focus on that, he couldn’t focus on anything.

It was gone. 

Lance was gone. 

“Keith!” Something was shaking him, holding his shoulder, the noise was barely cutting through the static, “Keith,” Distantly, he could see a blue light, covering the thing in front of him.

Shiro. Shiro was covered in a blue light. Blue light coming from him. 

He blinks hard, tasting blood in his mouth. “Shiro?” His voice is raspy, his hand is holding onto his arm tightly, breaking into the skin. 

“Oh thank god,” Shiro sighs, a heavy sigh of relief, “Your eyes turned blue,”

“Like Lance’s,” Hunk chimes in, and mutters something else, something that sound suspiciously like, “my suspicions are correct” 

That asshole needs to shut up. 

“What if that happens to all of us? You saw how Keith freaked the fuck out, what if we all do that?” Pidge was concerned, their arms flying around as their voice rose, “We need to figure out whats going on and get the fuck out of here.”

“Agreed” Shiro says, nodding, while his eyes look distant. 

Keith looks out, seeing the castle, even closer now. Their ship was slowing down, Lance still in his trance but slowly letting go off the pedals, or at least, Keith’s pretty sure there is a pedal. He really can’t tell. His head is pounding, still, even though Lance is right there.

He turns towards Lance again. It’s the same face, the same body, but no expression. His eyes are bright blue, the light covering everything in front of him, and then… he just looks so wrong. Lance always has expression, he’s always fully there in the moment but now, he just looks like a corpse. 

“Whatever’s controlling Lance is bringing us here. We need to scope out the area, and find a way out. I don’t want to touch this ship again.”

They all nod, unanimously, Keith refusing to let his eyes drift from Lance, even when their ship stops, landing on the outside of the castle. 

The glow slowly fades, Lance’s eyes coming back to their normal colors, while the Cuban shakes his head, and pinches the bridge of his nose. He must be feeling the headache too. 

“What’s-?” 

“Something controlled you,” Keith starts, wanting to reach forwards towards him, and hold him, his head is still pounding, but whatever was missing is back. 

Shiro puts a hand on the front of Keith’s face, before he can talk again, “And it might still be controlling you. Sorry, but we need to be careful. I’ll stay with Keith and Lance. We’ll split up, and cover more land faster. Try and meet back up here in an hour.

Pidge nods, a look of concern on their face as they leave with Hunk, while Shiro turns to Lance, a concerned look on his face. “Shiro, lets-”

“Keith,” Oh god, that’s the dad voice, Keith’s never liked that voice, but now, it's even worse. “Take a step back.” 

His heart is beating out of his chest, but Keith stares Shiro in the eyes, “No,” 

“No? Keith, it's dangerous!” Shiro tries, reaching forward to pull him back. Keith’s arms feel shaky, but he jumps back, almost pulling Lance with him.

“Shiro, it’s him, I know it's him.” Shiro pauses, his face softening for a second, and nods, slowly. A look of sadness takes over his features, but, he doesn’t say anything else and Keith pulls Lance forwards. 

Lance looks, to say the least, terrified. His hands are shaking and his knees are wobbly, but his face is the worst. Tears are almost filling his eyes, and theres a tilt to his head, something that Keith has never seen before. 

It’s almost terrifying to see.

“Let’s go.” 

With that, the trio set off. Keith holding onto Lance’s hand for dear life, savoring the touch. It’s just… amazing. Holding onto him even with just this feels comforting, like he just got back home after a hard day to his parents sitting there with food, all the food he could possibly imagine, all of it amazing.

Their footsteps echo through the empty castle, there's so many rooms, all filled to the brim with everything you could ever need, but no movement. 

It's almost like a ghost town. 

Keith walks first into a room, slowly peering in as he pushes the giant doors open. It’s creepy as hell. Just a huge empty room, and Keith’s about to just turn around and leave when a gust of wind pushes out from the floor. 

Two giant things start pushing out from the ground, steam pushing out of them, the room instantly chilling at least 10 degrees. And then, there’s screaming. 

Lance is screaming, his voice even more high pitched than Keith even imagined.

“Dios Mio! Pinche Mierda! What the fuck?” the curses tumble out of his mouth, as the things come out of the ground even faster, Lance’s eyes widening, Keith gripping onto his soulmates hand even tighter now.

There’s footsteps behind them, Keith’s vaguely aware of Pidge and Hunk running up behind them, but he can’t take his eyes off the pods in front of him. 

A woman steps out, with white hair and pointy ears. There’s shining jewelry all over her, her outfit fit for royalty. Next to her, a man steps out as well, his hair bright orange, and an amazing mustache covering half his face. 

Keith would have said something about how amazing his mustache was if he wasn’t so petrified. There were two people here, that both had pointy ears. There were two aliens in front of them. 

Keith’s mind flashed between curiosity and fear. He had always wanted to see alien, Shiro had shown him all the research they were doing, but he would have never thought he would actually meet aliens. 

And then, on the other hand, there was two aliens in front of them, with unknown strengths and weaknesses. They could eat people, they could eat them. They might have been waiting, they might be traps. His mind’s running at the speed of light as anxiety takes over his thoughts.

Then, there's a hand on his shoulder, and Lance is smiling at him, and everything might be alright. 

Maybe, there’s still aliens in front of them. 

The woman turns towards the man, “Coran, what's going on? Who are these people?” 

“Princess,” Coran says, holding out a small electronic tablet, “It appears we’ve been in stasis for ten thousand years.” She gasps, a look of disbelief over her face as she looks over towards his screen, “These people arrived on the blue lion.” 

She slowly turns towards them, sadness covering her face, “Thank you, I guess we have you to thank for waking us up.” Her eyes flick between the group, stopping on Shiro, “Oh, I believe we have soulmates among us.” A small smile covers her face, pointing towards Shiro, “Where is yours? They must be worried. And-” 

Shiro cuts her off, before she can say anything about Lance and Keith, “He is missing.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She glances towards Keith and Lance again, obviously unable to take a hint. God, Keith didn’t feel good right now, and he really just wanted to go sleep, and maybe hold Lance’s hand a little bit longer, and eat. 

Oh yeah, and get back to Earth. That was kind of a priority. 

“Would it be possible for, uh,” Shiro gestures towards Pidge and Hunk, something that Keith obviously picks up on as, ‘kick them out please’ but hopefully, body language hasn’t changed since they were in the ice, and with the alien race. 

“Of course,” She says, nodding, and holding her hands together, “Coran, could you escort our guests into the extra living quarters? Then head back,”

“Yessiree Princess, be back in a jiffy.” He was an absolute weirdo. Keith already loved him. Coran was just, the embodiment of weirdness and Keith thrived off weirdness. He ran half the cryptic sites online. 

His poor fans. 

With a sigh, Hunk continues to look towards Lance, a look of almost fear in his eyes, as Pidge eyes up the alien. Pidge was terrifying, Keith didn’t doubt for one second that they could take down Coran, and would do so spectacularly, but right now, he really wanted them out. 

“So, blue paladin,” The princess says, a small smile on her face, “You and your-” 

“Blue paladin?” Lance questions, hands dramatically waving in the air, “It like, took control of me. Am I the host to an alien that’s just going to randomly take control of me?” 

Here eyes widened, “No! Of course not, the blue lion chose you.” Her expression calmed, almost like she was trained to do that, creepy, “As i was saying, you and your soulmate bond feels off, are you not bonded yet?”

Shiro answers for them, luckily, “They’re a recent pair. If you don’t mind answering,” he says, with an almost deadly tint to the end of his words, “How are you aware that they are soulmates?” 

“Are your kind not attune to that?” 

Oh wow, that's not creepy. Keith’s starting to wish he was still at Earth even more now. Even Lance sitting right next to him can’t help that, and all this is creepy as hell and getting worse.

“No.” Shiro pauses, like he’s trying to think of his words, “We do not usually mention soulbonds, they are generally kept private.” 

Gasping, pulling a hand up to her face, and with the sincerest voice that Keith has ever heard, “Oh, I am very sorry. I was not aware of your culture, you are from Tuxton, correct?”

“No… Earth.” Keith says, more curiosity blooming, Lance reaches back, pulling his hand closer to his own chest, the feeling of comfort blooming stronger. Looking at Lance, a blush covering the Cuban’s face, Keith feels like he could take on the world. 

Maybe he would. 

He’s definitely a lot more willing to get closer to the princess, 

“Oh, I don’t believe I’ve heard of it. Anyways, we have a program, many soulmates go through it when they meet. It has an incredibly high success rate, nearly 70.”

Never mind, that confidence was gone. 

The door opened behind them, Coran pushing the door open with a sigh, “ I haven’t seen curiosity like that in a young one since ‘06, remember that young guard. Such a bright young fellow.” 

“Are you talking about Pidge? Short, blond, looks kinda like a bird?” Lances says, marking off the heigh at his hip. 

Pidge wasn’t that short, they came up to Keith’s shoulder. 

It clicks a second later, Keith’s almost ready to yell at Lance for the short joke. 

“Yes! Such a bright young fellow, I’m sure they will figure out the whole computer system by the time we’re done here. It’d be great to have another friendly face helping!” He just looks too cheery, Keith decides, but that isn’t bad. Coran seems like the weird college student you would meet and never forget about. 

“Coran, do you remember the soulmate pair exercises? I believe you helped create it?” 

His eyes light up with wonder and excitement, “I did! It should be in the training system, gosh, princess, it’s been so long sicne i met a young soulmate couple.” He holds his hands together, staring dreamily into space, “All the love in their eyes, it was amazing.” 

Keith stared at Coran, fear in his eyes, but movement off to the side caught his eye. Shiro turned his head, just at the perfect second that Keith knew exactly what to do. 

“So, princess, if i may ask you both, how do you sense soulmates?” The two aliens started excitedly talking, and Keith took his chance to run .

Pulling Lance’s arm, the two started sprinting away, pushing the door open with a shove, barely hearing the yelling of Coran and the princess beyond Lance’s giggling. With a glance, Keith saw Lance laughing, hsi eyes lighting up with joy as he glanced back towards the trio, all staring almost anxiously back towards them, before he started laughing harder, barely keeping up with Keith’s speed. 

But that didn’t matter, because Keith started laughing too, starting small before slowly building, and they had to stop, leaning on the wall as they laughed, smiles lighting up their faces. 

Keith could watch Lance all day, he just looked so happy. 

Lance met his eyes, and Keith looked away, heat forcing its way onto his face in a way that he knew his pale ass skin would be bright red. 

“You turn more red than my sister, dios mio.” Lance said, his laugh nearly stopping, the joy still on his face. “One time, she laughed so hard milk came out her nose, and then, my mom was almost as red cause she just fucking,” he stiffled a laugh, “had to clean it up, it was the best.” 

He smiled, a little bit, staring at his soulmate. 

“I got Shiro to punch his soulmate in the balls once.” 

Lance’s eyes widen, his mouth dropping into a gasp, “Oh my god, really? How, holy shit that’s amazing. Shiro’s just like this big amazing-” 

Cutting him off, Keith started into his story, “They were both asleep, and I’d just gotten this tarantula toy, it looked real.” Lance smirked, scooting in closer to Keith, almost to the point their knees were touching, “And I put a blanket over Matt, and then put it on his-” 

“How the hell did he fall for that? It’s amazing,” Lance nodded, a small tilt to his head, “ But like, the easiest trick in the book.”

“Only child.” 

Lance looked shocked, “So much makes sense to me now.” Laughing, Keith leaned in a little bit more to his soulmate, “Do you have siblings?” 

Shaking his head, Keith tries to keep his tone up, his soulmates just so… happy, he doesn’t want to ruin it, “I’m an orphan,”

“Oh,” Lance says, looking into his own lap.

Fuck, wait, no he shouldn’t have done that, he can’t just ruin this already.

Then, Lance looked back up, a small smirk on his face, “Don’t mention that to my mami, she’ll adopt you. Like, almost literally,” Keith was slightly concerned, but Lance must have seen that, “She won’t let you leave my house unless you have like, ten bowls of leftovers, and you’ll be invited to all the family events,” he said, nodding with excitement, “And, she’ll show you all the embarrassing baby photos.” 

“Won’t that already happen, though? We are soulmates.” 

Lance gasped, “How dare you disrespect my mami like that? She is a woman of family, and will care for you like you are her own child, not just my soulmate. It'll be more intense than just being my soulmate. My families all kind of crazy, though.”

“What the hell is that type of reasoning?” Keith smiles, pushing even closer to Lance, their hands intertwined, his head almost on his shoulder. 

He didn’t know why, but, it just felt right. Like every star had aligned and the entire world had stopped, except for them. 

“I have two sisters, and four brothers. The youngest is Bato, he was almost two. He hated wearing clothes, like, tear off the clothes on his back hate. It was really amazing. My dad would be about to leave for the day, and he would just, bam, naked, and running into the street.” 

Lance kept talking, slowly, his voice drawing his entire family for Keith. Keith could really care less, he never had a care of stuff like that, but as long as Lance was talking, it would be alright. At some point, Lance had pulled him closer, his arm reaching around his hip, and then Keith’s head was on his shoulder, feeling his heavy heartbeat. 

Keith barely didn’t hear the footsteps down the hall, too lost in the sound of Lance’s voice, but, through the corner of his eye, he saw Shiro. 

Shiro smiled fondly towards them, a old smile, Keith used to see him smile at Matt like that, and before him, Adam. 

Looking up almost blearily, taking his hand off Keith’s hip, Lance asked almost cautiously, “Did you talk them out of it? Cause, like, I don’t really want to do some program,” Keith nodded in agreement.

With a weird look on his face, Shiro says, “Ye-Yeah, they understood. I can lead you both to your room, it’s not too far from here.” 

“Room?” 

Shiro nods, “Yeah, soulmates generally share a room right? Especially just a normal, overly touchy couple such as you two, right?” 

Oh my god, this was going to be one long night. 


	3. Chapter 3

The first night was horrible. One bed was not enough for two, albeit short, grown men, especially if the two were trying as hard as they possibly could to not touch the other.

Lance did this dumbass thing that took up most of the bed. He would lay on his back, his arms flayed out around him almost like a starfish. Keith almost scoffed the first time he saw it, if he wasn’t freaking out over the fact he looked like a corpse.

And, even better, Lance snores. Keith can’t stand it. He was really starting to curse the universe, whatever or whoever the hell decided that he was stuck with a dumbass who couldn’t drive and snored.

But, after a few days, it was starting to get a bit better. Missions happened almost every day, to Lance’s disappointment. Keith was kind of happy, they had something to do, but after each mission, everyone was exhausted, the pair simply fell into bed, asleep before even hitting the pillow. 

Usually, Keith had pretty bad insomnia, but for some reason (probably the exhaustion), it wasn’t too bad. He wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night, and he wouldn’t wake up too early, not that he could really tell time at this point. 

This morning, he wakes up with something heavy leaning onto his back. It was hot, almost overheating. Reaching over, eyes still closed, he tries to shove whatever it was off of him, but it wouldn’t get off. 

Blearily looking up, Keith realized two things. 

  1. Lance had an arm over his back, pulling him into a tight hug



And 2. It wouldn’t be that bad if the room wasn’t this damn hot.

With a sigh, Keith starts to try and move out of Lance’s grasp, grabbing his soulmate's hand, after prying off his fingers, and setting it back down gently, trying not to wake him. Keith didn’t really understand how Lance slept in so late, but if it gave him some time to himself, then he was fine with it.

Careful to not make much noise, Keith pushes off his blanket, shoving most of it onto Lance, and stands up. God damn, alien tech was great. There was no squeaky ground, no matter where he stepped. It was beautiful, and almost made being kidnapped to space worth it.

Almost.

Yawning as the door opens into a dimly lit hallway, Keith wants for coffee. He knew it was addicting, but really didn’t care, and now it hurt. There was no coffee in space, and their entire team was suffering.

But(!), Hunk had been trying to figure out a replacement. Keith didn’t really know if he would ever figure out how to do it, but it gave him hope that he would wake up and see a Keurig. More or less. He really just hoped for something that tasted like Earth and not this shitty space goo.

Turning the corner, Keith expects to hear pots and pans moving, the sound of metal clanking, but instead, he hears something different. 

It was a horrible cry. He was sobbing, tears clearly rolling down his face, and every sob left him trying to stop the noise, to do anything to stop the crying, but it only made everything hurt worse.

Shiro had a hand over his heart, over his soulmark, more tears falling from his face and dripping onto his shirt. 

“Shiro?” He looks up, with bloodshot eyes and a red face, “Are you-” 

“Fine,” He says, taking a deep breath, “Sorry, couldn't sleep and it just hit me,” Shiro almost smiled, a twinge of sadness still on his face. His hand was still over his soulmark, almost protectively. 

“What-?” 

“You know what my soulbond does, right?” Shaking his head, Shiro continues, “We share emotions, there’s more, but, “ Shiro’s eyes wander, his lips tense, “I can feel Matt still, he’s not- not gone, but, there's so much fear.” 

Eyes widening, Keith pushes forward, pulling Shiro into a hug, and not letting go till he hugs back. When he looks up, tears are falling down his face even faster, Keith’s pretty sure he’s crying too. 

That explained so much. That’s why Shiro had been so off these last few missions, even since they rescued him. Even after they had all the lions, even after they could make Voltron, he never really looked happy, something deeper and sadder always in his features.

“Shit, Shiro, I’m sorry,” His voice comes out muffled, almost cracking. 

He just smiles, his eyes not following through. He’s not really happy, but he’s getting there, “It’s alright, it couldn’t have been helped. I just wish- Matt always feels so close,” Shiro’s eyes fill with tears, as his voice cracks, “But never close enough.” 

Oh shit, Keith’s crying now. He couldn’t imagine… He and Lance had never been close, they were getting there, but right now, if Lance was taken away, he wouldn’t know what to do, there was just something else, something that always felt so good when they were nearby. 

Shiro pats his back, and pulls out of the hug, “It’s alright, we’ll find him, I know we will.”

Keith nods, and hears a noise behind them. Shiro rubs his face, clearing it of any tears but the redness not going away. 

Lance walks into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes at the light. He doesn’t look quite awake, he probably was woken up by the small headache Keith was ignoring.

“Uh,”He mumbles, glancing between the two of them, “Good morning? I think it's morning, maybe not. My sleep schedules wack.” Mumbling under his breath, but loud enough for them to hear, he adds on, “I would literally kill for some coffee.” 

All three of them nod in agreement, Keith adds almost unethusicasticly, “I don’t understand how they lived without it.”

“I know, right!” Stumbling, clearly still not really awake, Lance reaches under a cabinet, blindly reaching for food, and pulls out a bag of space goop, “Ugg, I hate this stuff.” After a second of just staring at the food, Lance sighs and places it back into the cabinet. “You know what I’d really love right now? There’s this food, well, food and drink, that my mami would make.” 

Leaning against the wall, Keith smiles. Listening to his soulmates chatter was always nice and calming. From the corner of his eye, he sees Shiro lower his shoulders, and lean onto the cabinets. 

“We had to go to Cuba to get it, I swear, it was heaven on Earth. You’d make this coffee, which was really amazing,” Keith nods along, as Lance starts gesturing wildly, “My mami could make any coffee taste better than everyone else, it was like her superpower. But, like, then we’d get this food and it was called, uhh,” He rubs the back of his neck, a small smile on his face, “I don’t know the name in English but it’s really good and the combination of everything, amazing.”

Shiro nods, “All Earth food sounds good at this point. I haven’t had any in almost a year at this point.” 

They’re all silent for a moment, Lance freezing in place, Keith not knowing what to do. 

But then, Lance just talks. His soulmate just starts telling stories about anything, Keith doesn’t really know what's happening, but he and Shiro are nodding and adding on, the mood lifting up almost instantly. 

He really was amazing. 

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Lance stops, mid story, “We haven’t sealed the bond, so how do we do that? Like, as much as I love having Keith within 5 feet of me at all times, I kind of want a bit of time to myself.” 

Keith watches Shiro stifle a laugh, and unfortunately, Keith’s almost ready to explain how clingy Shiro and Matt were even after they sealed it, when Shiro actually starts explaining. 

Hah, he sounds uncomfortable, serves that asshole right. “You have to kiss.” Lance cocks his head to the side, raising his eyebrows, “But, it’s not that simple. You have to actually want it, no matter what could happen.” 

“What could happen?” Concern laced Lance’s voice. 

“Well,” Shiro rubs the back of his neck, “It’s like growing pains, but all at once. It’s very painful, but that's part of it. You’ll want to be with your soulmate more than you care about the pain, that’s when you know you mean it,” 

Shitttttt. Keith always wanted to know more about soulmates but didn’t ask many questions, he was sure it would never affect him so he didn’t need to worry, but now, he kind of wished he would have asked more when he was younger, when Matt and Shiro had just met.

“And then we get superpowers?” 

Shiro has to stifle a laugh again, “More or less. It’s usually based on how well you know each other, and what you’re going to do, I heard that soulmates who meet earlier in life have stronger powers. I met my soulmate at about the age you two are now.” 

Keith watched as the dots connected in Lance’s head, and he slowly nods, “So, then, what’s yours?” 

Shiro tenses. Before all this, he was private. Keith wasn’t even sure if his soulmate’s family knew they were soulmates. Sure, they knew they were dating, but that might have been it. Keith wasn’t sure if Shiro even told his parents.

He probably did, that sounded like something he would do. 

But nonetheless, no one else knew, and now that everyone on this ship knew, Shiro really didn’t like it. It was terrifying, on Earth, Shiro had shown him a list of the soulmates, they never lived too long, but whatever they were doing, it was usually huge. 

But, it shook Shiro to the core. To him, it was practically a death sentence, and since then, he was tense in public. No one noticed, no one really knew him well enough, but once he got home, and it was just the 3 of them, he was a different person. 

Even now, he hadn’t let that shield drop, not completely. 

“We can sense each other's emotions. And if we’re near each other, we can sense other people's emotions.” 

“Oh my god, that’s so cool!” Lance practically bounces off the wall, “Is it external because you two met later, or did you two have a relationship more like that? Are there any distance limits? How close do you have to be to sense other people's emotions? Can you influence emotions, too? ” 

Laughing, no longer stifling it, Shiro smiles, and tries to answer Lance’s questions. Keith hadn’t noticed it before, but Lance was pretty smart. He didn’t act like it, but he did have good grades, he was close to the top of their academic classes, even though he didn’t take notes. 

Huh, interesting. 

“My best guess is that you two will have something that affects other people as well. Like healing others, but I don’t think that would match you two.” 

Lance nods enthusiastically“Maybe we’ll get an actual superpower, like, controlling water and fire, cause opposites attract, Damn that’d be so cool. But, I’d guess-” he starts talking more to himself than anything else, Keith catching more than a few words that don’t sound like english. “Maybe we’d have something to help us in combat, cause that’s what’s going on right now, it’s probably our goal.”

Keith smiles, it would be pretty nice to have something more like actual superpowers, but he knows what Shiro’s shown him, and that definitely isn’t something that would happen. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had something similar to Shiro’s, maybe something mental, but something with combat wouldn’t hurt. 

A siren goes off, and all three of them sigh, already hearing footsteps running around through the rest of the castle. “Do we really have to-?”

“Yes,” 

“Unfortunately,”

With a sigh, Keith follows the other two out of the kitchen, not willing to keep up with Shiro’s pace this early. 

Pushing into the hangar, and putting on his helmet, Allura’s voice is already talking through the speakers, “Galra’s are attacking, heading here the coordinates I have sent you. Red and Blue, you need to take out the smaller ships leaving the mothership. Green, you need to sneak onto the ship and take down their power, do what you need to do. Yellow and Black, frontal attack on the mothership.” 

Pushing into action, Red’s door opens, with a burst of air, he can already feel her excitement. She was always ready for a mission, and they had a good job today. 

Her engines turned on, rumbling the entire ship. Through the glass of the blue lion, Keith saw Lance looking towards him. Good. He was ready to destroy some shit. 

Shooting forwards, Blue on his tail, they shot forwards into space, a small smile on his face. There was at least twenty of them, small little fighters not really meant for fighting but for getting fighters from one ship to another. Or in this case, to infiltrate their castle. 

Like hell Keith was going to let that happen. 

Laser’s activating, Red shoots forward, practically cutting a ship in half. Out of the corner of his eye, Keith see’s Blue covering ships in ice. 

Ohhh, that’s where he got that from. Keith smiles at his soulmate's antics, as he readjusts his ship and hits another. 

“Updates, Paladins.” 

Lance starts through his com, “We’re set to take them all out, Blue and Red Over,” 

There’s a second, and Pidge cues in, sounding out of breath, “Just took out soldiers keeping the power supply safe, Mothership should be going down any second now. I’m going to their control room and getting out. Green over.” 

“The outside is too damaged for them to safely continue. Retreat will happen soon, Pidge, get out of there now. Black and Yellow over.” 

Keith spared a glance towards the mother ship. It was almost the same size as the castle, if not slightly smaller. It was purple and gray, with that same weird shape that almost looked like a scythe. Pidge had tried to explain how it worked so well to him, but most of it went over his head. 

But, right now, the front half was broken off, slowly floating away from the actual ship and the rest of it wasn’t looking that good either, burn marks and pieces broken off almost the whole thing. Keith would be surprised if they could actually retreat.

“Alright Paladins, let’s finish this up, Allura out.” 

With a new burst of determination, Keith hits another ship, and pushes closer to where his soulmate was, to where more ships were being set out. 

Static burst into their coms, “Shit, my exits blocked.” 

The static stops, “Pidge?” 

“Pidge?” Shiro asks, “Keith, Lance, go get Pidge out of there.”

Lance responds, his voice almost taunt, “Gotchu,” 

Their lions react instantly, no longer aiming towards the ships but moving towards the big ship, Hunk going to take their places. 

The green lion was just outside of the ship, docked on one of the least beat up parts of the ship, it shouldn’t be too hard to get in there, just use the same entrance, find Pidge, and get out. 

Or at least, it wouldn’t have been if the ship hadn’t disappeared, leaving the green lion hanging in the middle of space. 

“Fuck, it’s gone,” 

“Coran’s tracking their location. They couldn't have gone far.” a beat of silence, “Sending new location to your Lions. Red and Blue, go track it down. Blue and Yellow, finish taking everything down and bring back Green.” 

Ignoring the rest of whatever they were going to say, and muting his com, Keith pushes forwards, knowing Blue is right behind him. 

Small bits of floating rubble appear in front of them, and the closer they get to the coordinates the more there is. And then finally, the ship is in front of them, and it looks like it’s barely hanging on. 

Blue pushes forwards, and hits Red. Keith sighs, switching on his coms. “Come on Keith, please, I’ll hit Red again.” 

“I’m here.” He almost adds on, not willingly. 

“Alright, Pidge just comned in, They’re fighting them off but they have a weird weapon. We can’t just go running in or Pidge could get really hurt.” 

“What weapon?” Keith really hoped that they were just over analyzing things, he had to more than once, tell Pidge an easy answer to something they were trying literally invent new things for. 

“Uhh, they said it was like a whip, but whatever it hits turns black.” 

Allura cuts into their conversation, rude, “It steals the quintessence from things. I agree with Pidge and Lance, you need to find another way in and get the weapon away from them. We need to further investigate this.”

Grunting his response, Keith pushes Red further, away from where they would have entered, “Pidge still has their helmet on, right?”

Through static, Pidge grunts, panting heavily, and then there’s a loud noise and the static gets worse. “Yes, hurry,” 

“Good.” Tightening his grip onto the controls, Keith pushes Red straight down, heading headfirst towards the mothership. 

He can practically see the stress in Lance as he goes barreling forward, ignoring the protests from Lance, and slams into it at full speed. There's flashes of light, as wires disconnect and he’s pushed away from the ship as it all de-pressurizes.

“Pidge, where are you?” Keith asks, moving Red further back. He doesn't see any Galra or Pidge, which he can’t figure out if it’s good or bad. “Pidge?” 

“I got the whip, and am heading out now.” Keith lets out a sigh, feeling his entire body relax, and Red practically does the same. She may be a daredevil and a wild card, but she cares for the team just as much as he does.

Pidge jetpacks out of the ship, pushing away from it all and towards Blue, quickly getting in, and they all head out. Keith would say it was pretty successful, especially compared to some of their other missions. 

Pulling into the hangar, he sees Black, Green, and Yellow already docked, with Hunk waiting for them. Shiro was probably reporting to Allura, who had seen it all but his military background was too strong not to. 

Maybe not background. That might be ptsd. That might make more sense.

Red docks down, sending Keith a feeling of happiness, “Thanks, Red. When we have a break, I can polish you.” 

She practically trills at that., making Keith smile, and pat her leg as he walks out.

Lance and Pidge are already talking to Hunk, who might have taken over for Space Dad. “Pidge, really? You could have died.” 

Pidge wasn’t just holding the whip, which had already marked part of the ground black, but something that Keith didn’t recognize, probably some computer shit. 

Wait, were they stuck because- 

“You matter more than getting a text to go to my parents, Pidge, please,” Lance tries, a sad look on his face. Lance always talked about his parents and family, it was a huge family, and they were obviously close. Keith shouldn’t have been surprised that he was trying to communicate with them. Keith hadn’t tried his own phone, but he didn’t exactly have anyone to talk to. 

Pidge purses their lips, “It’s not just that, we can see what their plan for this thing was,” They shift their weight, looking upset and anxious, “And I’m fine, I’m going to debrief.” 

Sighing, Keith grabs Lance’s hand, his soulmate practically jumps, looking shocked, before seeing its him, and leaning his arm into him. 

Pidge raises an eyebrow at them, and Hunk laughs, but they walk out of the hangar, and towards the rest of their group.

Keith liked the small things, he wouldn’t say he was touch starved, but pretty close. And it seemed Lance was the same, he would always lean into Keith, to try and be even closer. It was nice, but Keith didn’t really know what to do with it.

Lance stopped, with a strange look on his face. “What?” 

Keith’s soulmate looked down towards him, “it’s just,” he pauses, “Nothing, let’s go debrief,” 

He lets go off Keith’s hand, and goes forwards, “Wait, Lance,” 

But, he had already gone into the room, leaving Keith alone and confused. 

What the fuck just happened? He didn’t have time to think, instead tried, and failed, to clear his expression and walk into the room.

Allura was a space mom, and that honestly brought his mood up more than he would admit. 

She looked ready to throw down. Her face was composed, but her body language was showing how obviously mad she was. “Pidge, I understand your curiosity, but you could have been seriously hurt,”

Shiro tried to push in, “Princess,”

“The whip was not worth your life, but,” She pauses, and smiles lightly, “Thank you for retrieving it. Coran should be starting his investigation now, go head to the labs.” Pige practically runs out of the room, leaving the rest of them to stare in absolute confusion. Keith was pretty sure he knew what was about to go down, but that was nothing like what he expected.

“Well, Coran and Pidge have their own training, I believe we should start ours.” Lance and Keith groan, Shiro purses his lips, about to probably say how they shouldn’t complain, when Allura speaks again, “Partner exercises. Hunk, you should decide, fighting training or mental training?”

Keith narrows his eyes at Hunk, he better not- “Uhh,” Hunk looks anywhere but Keith, “Mental?”

“Excellent choice!” 

Bastard.

“Hunk and Shiro will be our first pairs, Keith and Lance, you two will go next.” Resigned to his fate, Keith walks away from Allura and the pair, from the weird brain things Keith really didn’t like. They looked like alien tech.

Oh. 

Well, even if they were alien, they looked like the type of thing that removes your brain and is not here for it. 

Lance trudges over to him, but he looks distant, like he’s still thinking. He doesn’t sit next to Keith, instead a few feet over, staring at the ground, head in another galaxy. Keith doesn’t know what to do, he’d always had Shiro, and he wasn’t that bad about emotions, so Keith didn’t have to deal with this type of stuff. Shiro more had to deal with him having anger issues than Keith having to deal with Shiro and his fucked up relationships.

“Are you..?” 

“Fine,” 

Keith sighs, pursing his lips. That was the extent of his people skills. 

“Have you ever heard of mothman?” Well, there goes that. 

Lance pauses, turning to look at Keith, “What the fuck?” 

“Have you ever heard of mothman, Lance, answer the question.”

His soulmate pauses, a small smile on his face, “Maybe,” Keith smirks.

This was something he could talk about, “I went to the town it’s from, and tried to find him.” Lance gasps, his eyes widening. Keith really didn’t expect him to even know about any of this, much less be this excited. “I didn’t find it, but I have this bomb-ass t-shirt.”

“Oh my god,” 

“If I had to bring one thing with, I would have brought that with.” 

“Oh my god, Keith,” Lance laughs, smirking again. He stares off into nothing, looking almost as far away as before, “Me and my siblings used to think there was a monster in the sea cave near our old home.” 

“Was it at least a shark or something?”

Lance grins, still staring away, but a little bit more present, “Nope, maybe jellyfish at some point, I guess I thought of it more as a Kraken.” 

Keith laughs, not really sure what to do still, but Lance definitely looked a bit better. 

“Did I ever tell you I grew up in Cuba?” Lance says, out of absolute nowhere, Keith shakes his head, “I’m pretty sure Hunk knows, but I don’t really mention it a lot. Kids used to give me shit for it. My english is a lot better now, though.” 

“Your english is better than mine,” Keith says, ready to go beat up whoever bullied Lance, “The only reason I knew you were bilingual was all the random phrases.”

Laughing, Lance smiles, his eyes following through, and he turns to face Keith, “Uhh, yeah,” he rubs the back of his neck, “Spanish curses just sound better, you know?” 

Smiling, Keith nods, “Yeah, my mom was Korean, I think. Never actually met her, and I never learned the language.” 

“We should totally do that sometime!” Lance nods excitedly, Keith nodding along, his excitement was contagious, “Hunk speaks… something, I don’t remember, and Pidge probably knows like seven languages, and Allura and Coran might know some weird old forgotten language.” His eyes widen, “We should totally learn a dead alien language, then we can talk shit about the people near us.” 

Keith smiles, wondering where the hell his soulmate gets these random ideas but loving them nonetheless, “Sounds good.” 

Allura walks away from the pair, and gestures towards them to come over, “I will get you two set up. It’s just a basic concentration test.” 

Oh great, a test. With a glance to Lance, he could tell they were both screwed. 

Holding two of the weird-ass helmets, Allura pulls them both over, away from Shiro and Hunk. Those two weren’t doing too bad, both of them kept flickering into something else, but for the most part, they were focusing pretty well. Keith could only hope for the best. 

The helmets are fastened on, Keith trying not to think about what’s on his head, and Allura gives them an okay, and it starts. “Your goal is to think of the same thing, whether it be voltron related or something else is fine, just focus.”

Something else sounded wrong. Keith just wanted to think about Voltron. Lance laughed at him, his thoughts pushing its way into his head, feelings of happiness and glee, with something small, almost sadness, in the back of his mind. 

“So,” Lance starts, but Allura shushes him.

“No talking, you have to do everything through the bond,” Alright then, this just became ten times more complicated. 

Lance met his eyes, and he smiled gently, he was thinking about the beach. Keith’s thoughts immediately jumped towards the sea monster, theories jumping around. God dammit, he missed his blog. 

His soulmate laughs at him. That bastard, Lance was thinking about his blog now, more like, what his blog was about. Trying, and luckily not failing, he tells Lance to stop, he just laughs more. 

Alright, if they were going to do this, then-

Keith pushes forward his thoughts of Lance screaming, when he pushes them over the canyon. He sounded terrified, and looked even worse, but the real Lance doesn’t even grimace, instead thinking of the blog even harder.

Keith’s mind flicks to his blog, of Mothman and all the random conspiracies he’d found over the years. Lance gaps, holding a hand over his mouth, but laughing too hard to try and hide it. Lance bends over, head over heels, laughing even harder. 

Keith can see Shiro and Hunk looking over, Allura smiling a little bit but doing much better to hide it.

“Oh my god, Keith, just,” Lance laughs harder. The mind things push forwards pure joy, and Keith is here for it. 

Still smirking, trying not to laugh, Keith barks out a, “Stop you asshole,” 

Lance laughs even harder, trying to speak, but he can’t stop laughing long enough to say anything. Shiro and Hunk are still looking over towards them, Shiro probably realized what’s going on at this point, but Hunk just looks confused, and is glancing between Shiro and the pair. 

Allura still hasn’t said anything, so they’re probably fine. 

Finally, Lance stops laughing so hard, and says, between laughs, “Oh my god, I can’t even. Your poor fans, they won’t ever know about the ghost of the Garrison.” 

Shiro barks out a laugh, Keith feels his face turn bright red, “It’s not even- you asshole, focus on the exercise.”

Lance just laughs harder, Keith has to try to not laugh along with him. “Okay, okay,” lance says, laughing, “I think I’m good,” Looking back to his soulmate, Lance bursts out laughing again, and Keith can’t even hold it back anymore. 

He hears Shiro laughing across the room, and Hunk chuckling a little. Allura was smiling, they all looked so happy. It was nice. 

Lance looks towards him, not looking away, and Keith barks out another laugh, before pulling himself together, with a smile on his face. Lance laughed one more time, and smirked, like he knew some big secret. 

Well, he kind of did, but still.

“Alright, back to work, Paladins,” Allura says, a happy tone to her voice, Shiro saying something back, but Keith doesn’t pay attention to that.

He thinks of the beach, the thing that Lance was thinking about earlier, and sees Lance smile, switching to the beach. Keith focuses on Lance’s thoughts, as Lance thinks of the beach with blue waters, and seashells. There was a cave, but you had to hike to it. At the end of the hike, he jumped off the side of the cliff where the cave was, into the rumbling ocean. 

Everything was so blue, Keith felt himself smile, as Lance tumbled through the water, and switched to a different memory. This one was surfing, he said something to somebody who looked like Lance, probably a brother or his dad, and they walked into the water. 

The waves were huge, but Lance wasn’t worried at all, everything about him was confident. He swam forwards, and as a big wave got even bigger, Lance stepped up onto his board, smiling with ease and comfort that only came with years of practice. 

He rode the wave out, before the wave broke, and he fell into the water. 

The person he was with, they were still on their board, was cheering for him, waving into the sky and yelling something in a language that Keith didn’t know. 

The memory ends, pulling Lance and Keith out of the thoughts, just watching their soulmate. 

“Amazing,” A voice behind them says, scaring Keith. Coran is standing behind them, with Allura. Hunk and Shiro are gone, “people with an incredibly strong bond or friendship can usually connect in ways that strangers cannot usually, but soulmates always amaze me.” Allura nods her agreement.

Keith glances to Lance, who looks just as confused as he feels, “What…?” 

Coran sighs wistfully, away in some other world, and Allura speaks before he can speak some nonsense, “Soulmates are always connected, to some level or another, even before bonding. After the bond it is strengthened depending on their abilities,”

“But what was different? That’s just how its always been,”

Allura nods, with Coran muttering about something that Keith can’t quite catch, “Because you two are soulmates, group bondings are much easier, soulmates can quite easily pull groups together.”

Huh, Keith would have to ask Shiro or Hunk about that to confirm.

“Once you two bond, creating Voltron may become more difficult, it hasn’t been tested before.” 

Coran nods, “it will certainly be an interesting experiment! With you two as close as that, it could either pull the group closer together by following that lead, or make you two nearly incompatible with the group!” 

Keith couldn’t understand how he could say that so cheerfully. Lance grimaced next to him, “That’s not-” 

Coran speaks again, cutting him off, going on about something that Keith definitely can’t follow, and something that Lance isn’t following. Allura is though, she’s nodding along with whatever he’s saying, immune to the distress they’re in. 

“Oh!” Coran stops, turning towards the pair, “You two missed lunch and dinner, but I do believe number two left out some food.”

Wait-

“We just got back from the mission like, twenty minutes ago,”

Coran just sighs wistfully, again, Keith was getting bored of that expression very quickly, “Aww, soulmates. Always so confused at first.”

“What he means to say,” Allura cuts in, “You two were so far into the bond that it would have been unsafe to pull you out, and you were going through one another’s memories for nearly 5 vargas.” 

“Holy shit.” Keith exclaims, Lance staring towards him with a shocked expression. “Just, what?”

Lance just shakes his head, and grabs Keith’s arm, pulling them both away from the Alteans, “Thanks,” under his breath, he starts muttering in quick spanish, Keith was pretty sure that even if he was fluent he wouldn’t be picking up half the stuff he was saying. 

Pushing through the castle, Keith starts hearing talking, the sound of two deep voices in the kitchen. In front of them, Hunk and Shiro were talking in the kitchen, both seemingly lost in conversation as the pair walked into the room. 

“Uh,” Lance says, pulling their attention, “Hey? We were told there was food?” 

Hunk nods, reaching behind him to grab something, “I gotchu,” eww, space goop. “Sorry, Coran said we’d be going to a bazaar or something soon, till then, we’re stuck with this stuff.” 

Grimacing, Lance starts eating it, and talks through a full mouth, “It’s fine,” Keith really tries not to look at him, that’s just plain disgusting, “Miss Earth food.” 

“Me too, buddy,” Hunk pats Lance on the back, “Me too.” 

Shiro clears his throat, drawing all of their attention, “So-”

Keith cuts him off, “Shut up you bastard.” Lance gasps, in dramatic fashion. Clearly, he hadn’t been around Keith and Shiro enough. 

“So-”

“No,” 

“I heard that,” 

“No,”

Lance throws a hand over Keith’s face, effectively shutting him up, that asshole. Shiro just laughs, bastard, “Allura and Coran were talking about the mental trainings effect on soulmates,” 

Hunk nods, excitedly, he was a scientist at heart, unfortunately, “Yeah! It was much harder for Shiro and I to match up our thoughts, way harder than when we were in the group.”

Well, at least Keith didn’t have to ask. 

“Coran and Allura said that the bond makes it a lot easier to match up our thoughts,” Lance hurriedly explains, “I think we should probably tell Pidge soon, I feel kinda bad leaving them out,” Keith’s about to shut that train of thought down, he really didn’t know Pidge enough to trust them with that type of thing, Shiro obviously ready to take his side on that, when they hear a voice.

“Tell me what? What about this ‘bond’ you speak of?” Pidge is at the doorway of the kitchen, space grease covering too much of their clothes, and holding about three types and wrenches with more tools hanging out of their pockets. 

“Well, uh-” Lance starts, stumbling over his words, and looks towards Keith with a nervous expression. Keith laughs at him, he got himself into this. 

“Kidding, sorry Lance, that expression was priceless and will now be added into my collection,” Keith glances at Lance, mouthing ‘what collection’ and Lance mouths back ‘later’. That doesn’t help, Keith’s very sure he’s just going to forget about it in ten minutes. “You two are soulmates, right?” 

What the fuck type of bullshit is this?

“Uhh,” Lance is staring at Keith wide eyed, Keith wouldn’t be surprised if he had the same expression, “How…?”

“You aren’t subtle, and neither are the alteans. No offence to them, their tech is genius, just not their stance on soulmates.”

Keith slowly nods, really not sure what’s happening right now but he lets it go. Lance still looks like a frightened puppy, but he eventually manages to pull it together, and respond, with a very confused tone in his voice, “uh, well. Yeah.” 

“Thought so. Shiro, your soulmate is Matt Holt, right?” 

If Keith wasn’t so concerned about Pidge, he would probably be laughing, Pidge is just that terrifying. Shiro goes slack jawed, eyes widening, for approximately one second, and pulls himself together. 

“Wait,” Lance asks, staring at Pidge, before switching to look at Shiro, “Wasn’t that the guy on the Kerberos mission with you? Matt Holt, and his dad?”

“Yep,” Pidge says, a confident look on their face, “So, Shiro, answer my question.” Swallowing harshly, Shiro nods, and Pidge smiles even wider, “Thought so,” 

Hunk sits in the corner, looking incredibly confused, but probably happy that he was left out of all this. Keith’s almost jealous. 

“Where and when was the last place you saw him? From what I’ve read, it’s not safe for soulmates to be apart for that long.” 

Shiro shakes his head, “It’s not, I don’t know the exact time. Maybe three weeks ago, give or take. It was on a galra ship.” 

A hush goes over the group, Shiro hadn’t mentioned much of what happened to him, he’d always try changing the subject, even Keith didn’t know a lot, except that he was a prisoner. 

“Huh,” 

Keith spares a glance away from Shiro to look at Pidge. They looked terrifying, that expression on their face was no longer the fun thing Keith thought it was when they first met, but instead an expression that showed how glad he was Pidge was on their side.

“Well, good night.” 

Pidge leaves them all in their silence. They were chaotic, and terrifying, and the rest of the group agreed. Maybe not Coran, he probably thrived off shit like that. Either way, it was crazy insane.

“So,” Lance says, breaking the silence, “When are we supposed to go shopping, again? I need off this ship.” 

Keith breathes out a sigh of relief, as the rest of the group untenses, “I think Coran just said soon,” Hunk answers, “But I’ll ask him,”

Taking a bite of his food, Keith nods. He can’t wait to have actual food. 

Lance sighs almost happily, “I really hope they have, like, anything really. I’m gonna go window shopping. I hope i can go window shopping.” He stares off, before speaking again, even faster with an excited tone, “Ooh, Hunk, you should totally come with us,” dammit Keith has to come with him, “We might be able to get some good clothes, or skin care stuff. Ooh! Wait, what if-” 

Keith lets his mind trail off, eating and thinking about what he’d want. 

Definitely some better food. And coffee. Maybe if he saw a good knife or something, but his bayard kind of takes care of that. 

Maybe something that reminds him of Earth? Even then, Keith doesn’t really need anything, so why should he get anything? If they got a certain amount of money he would probably just give it to Lance, but he didn’t really expect to be given money. 

Who knows if their money is still valid, even. 

Ignoring his train of thought, and finishing his food, Keith sets down the empty plate, and spares a glance at Lance. He was almost done with his food, and Keith really just wanted to go lay down. 

Lance catches his glance, and smiles gently, “I think I’m going to head to bed,” lance says, to Hunk and Shiro.”

“Me too,” Keith adds in, and follows Lance out of the kitchen, and to their room. Practically falling onto the bed, Keith closes his eyes, and wills sleep to take over. He sits there in absolute silence for a few minutes, while Lance changes in the nearby bathroom and falls into bed. His soulmate passes out almost immediately, Keith could only hope it would be that easy for him. After what had to be two hours, Keith realizes something.

The mission and the training had exhausted him, leaving him aching for sleep. But, when he put his head down, sleep wouldn’t come. 

Goddammit the insomnia was back. He had really hoped it would take longer to come back.

Pulling himself off the bed, and away from Lance and the silent bedroom, Keith makes his way towards the training room. The best thing to do was exhaust himself, and he might as well be efficient with it. 

Keith trudged across the castle, through the silence. As he pushed open the door, a small headache hit him, not bad enough to make him want to sit down or throw up, but just something that made thinking just that much harder.

So, it was annoying as hell. 

With a sigh, Keith blearily walked into the training room, pressing the lights, and starting the training sequence. He needed to be better, so that if something like today happened again, he could be more ready, and more prepared. None of his teammates would get hurt on his watch. 

“Level one, start,” 

Losing himself in the moments, Keith works through the levels, it started out easy, but it quickly got so difficult that he couldn’t expect the movements, that he would take multiple tries for the levels.

He doesn’t know how much later it was, but Keith was about ready to pass out. His arms were aching, and his knees were shaky, his heavy breathing filling the room. 

Slowly, he drops to the ground, lying flat, trying to breathe, and his eyes closed. 

Keith’s not really sure when Lance had entered the room, but his soulmate laughed, a quiet little laugh. Then, before Keith really knew what was happening, he was being picked up, and moved out of the training room, his bayard on his chest. Exhaustion hit him even harder with the touch from his soulmate. Keith fell asleep in Lance’s arms, Lance silently aww-ed at his soulmate.

Lance carried him to their room, slowly, making sure to be quiet. He gently set Keith down on the bed, and put the blanket over him, watching his soulmate with a small smile, before sleeping himself.

The next morning, Keith didn’t awake to the sound of snoring, or blankets rustling, but instead to giggling. 

Blearily rubbing his eyes, Keith looked up. Lance was still asleep, snoring, Keith was practically laying on Lance at this point, his hand around his hip, head on his shoulder. Lance’s hand was pulling him in. 

But the giggling…? 

Pidge stood by the door, a camera in their hand. Shiro wasn’t too far behind them, along with Coran. 

Narrowing his eyes, and trying to sound mad, it was too early to think straight, Keith tried to sound mad but it came out more scratchy and whiney than anything, “Go away,” 

More giggling, that little shit. 

“Keith, what’s going on?” Lance asks, his words quiet, not awake either. 

“Yeah, Keith, what’s going on?” Pidge copies, that little shit was getting booted. Keith was not going to help them next time they needed help reaching the high shelf. 

Lance squints, eyes widening when he catches sight of Pidge, “Oh, hey Pidge. I’m going back to bed.” And with that, Lance closes his eyes, almost pulling Keith down with him. He starts snoring almost instantly. 

Pidge is laughing even harder now. Keith starts glaring at them, deciding the best way to kill them, when Shiro finally takes a hint, and shuts their door. He can hear the two through the door, but the door stays firmly closed. 

“Psst,” Lance says, his eyes still closed, “Are they gone?”

Keith stops glaring, staring down at his soulmate instead, “Yeah,” His lips purse, and Keith’s about ready to lay back down when Lance sits up. 

“Thank god. If Pidge does that again, just ignore them. They’ll go away once they have their blackmail.”

“What the fuck?” 

Lance giggles, leaning onto Keith, “Oh, you poor child, that’s what they were talking about last night, remember? Pidge has a database on practically everyone they know, if you fuck up, everyone will know what Pidge knows.” 

“Holy shit, that’s terrifying.” Pidge was terrifying, and Keith was starting to get more and more glad they were on their side.

Lances laughs again, and nods, “That’s just Pidge, you learn to love them. And befriend them. Never get on Pidge’s bad side.” 

Nodding enthusiastically, Keith leans a bit more into his soulmate's touch, holding around his hip, and leaving fully onto his shoulder. It was too early, and Keith would probably stay awake, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be awake.

Lance smiles, looking down towards Keith, a new look in his eyes, one that Keith couldn’t recognize. It wasn’t bad, Keith almost wanted to see it more. 

Keith’s staring back at Lance, smiling. And then, they’re leaning in, closing their eyes. Gently and with caution, Keith brushes Lance’s lips. Then they’re kissing again, deeper. 

Keith slowly backs up, opening his eyes. Lance is staring back at him, his lips pushed downwards, only slightly, and Keith could almost cry himself. 

His soulmate just looked wrong, that look of sadness hurting, and he realized why.

They hadn’t sealed the bond. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooh plot development!!! This chapter came out a lot earlier than i expected, this fic might actually end at 5 chapters, maybe a 6th for the epilouge, but that could change pretty easily. Leave a kudos or comment if you liked it!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhh, good luck, sorry for cliffhanger, and, once again, it will get worse before it gets better

Lance was gone, and Keith didn’t know what to do. They didn’t close the bond. The kiss didn’t work. The look on Lance’s face, Keith didn’t know if it’d ever be gone from his mind.

His eyes fill with tears, what if he just fucked everything up? He couldn’t lose the only good thing in his life. Tears are streaming down his face, his knees pulled to his chest. Everything just hurts, and his head’s screaming at him in pain. 

He’s not sure how much time passed, but Shiro’s knocking at his door, and pushing his way in. 

Everything just fucking hurts. 

“Keith,” There's a hand on his shoulder, “Keith, look at me,”His head’s pounding worse than he could ever imagine, worse than anything he’d felt before, “What happened?” 

His voice is quiet, barely able to hold back his sobs, “We kissed,” tears roll down his face, “it didn’t work, Shiro what if it was my fault?” tears are rolling down his face even faster, his voice trembling, “What if we never seal the bond? What if we’re never-” 

“Take a deep breath, alright.” Shiro says, there’s a look on his face, it doesn’t make him feel any better, “Soulmates don’t work like that, you’ll get through this,”

“But Shiro,” he sobs, the words getting stuck in the back of his throat, “What if, what if I can’t seal the bond, what if I just can’t, what if I’m not meant to. I’m so fucking fucked up, what if I can’t-?”

Shiro grabs his wrist, “Keith, I’ve never seen you like this before. You’re meant to be with him,” Tears are falling even faster, Keith sniffles, unable to meet Shiro’s eyes, “And it wasn’t you.” 

“What?” His eyes widen, shocked, still crying, but-

“Lance knew he couldn’t seal the bond, that’s for him to tell you, ” Shiro says, letting go of Keith, and taking a step back. “He’s upset with himself,”

Keith rubs his face, unable to wipe away all the tears, “I need to talk to him,” 

“No,” What? “He needs space, and you two need to think. There will be a time when you two will talk all this over, but right now, he needs to think.” 

“But Shiro,” Keith’s practically desperate, his head pounding, his eyes focused on the door.

“It doesn’t work the first time for most soulmates, but right now, it didn’t work because Lance is missing his family. And we can’t go back to Earth right now, so he needs time to think this all over.” Shiro narrows his eyes on Keith, moving into his line of vision, “You need time, too.” 

Keith swallows harshly, his eyes dropping to the ground, to the bed. He can practically still see-

“I’m going to leave, for now, but you need to pull yourself together. Just remember, this isn’t the end. Whatever your anxiety’s saying, that’s not what’s going to happen.” Shiro glances behind him, before pulling Keith into a tight hug, “This will get better, I promise, just give it time.” 

Keith nods numbly, and then Shiro’s gone. 

Time passes, Keith doesn’t know how long he sits there. Everything fucking hurts, his head’s not helping. But eventually, he can’t ignore his stomach, and has to go grab food.

The hallways are silent, the giant castle is absolutely silent. Keith hopes it stays that way. Unfortunately, he gets closer to the kitchen, the sound of a whisk just gets louder. Distantly, he hears quiet talking, the enthusiastic voice, talking about space goop.

The goddamn space goop. Dammit, Keith wasn’t sure if anything could bring down his mood anymore but that just did.

Hunk was in the kitchen with Coran, both looking concerned, and looking up towards him. Hunk pursed his lips, and Coran grimaced. Wow, that made Keith feel good. “Hey Keith,” Hunk says, a sad tone to his voice, “Breakfast should be done soon,” 

He nods, distantly looking through the rest of the kitchen. His thoughts shifted from food to… everything else quickly, more what-if’s filling his brain then he knew how to handle.  
Almost like he sensed it, Coran shoves his bowl into Keith's hands, “Can you whisk this, counterclockwise, for thirty seconds? Thanks very much, Number Four, if you over whisk ,it could explode, be very careful.”

“What-?” Hunk laughs from across the room, as Coran flees. Keith doesn’t know how to whisk, he could barely order food correctly. 

“You have to actually be careful,” Hunk agrees, “this stuff is highly volatile,” Keith's eyes widened, why the hell were they eating it? “You have to whisk counter clockwise in thirty seconds or less increments. It keeps it from exploding, or reacting with any particles in the air. “

“What the fuck?” Hunk just laughs, and Keiht stares down at the bowl, “I, uh, don’t know how to whisk,” 

Hunk smiles, almost laughing again, before setting his own bowl down, and grabs Keith's hand, over the whisk. God, Keith felt like a child. “It’s simple, just this movement,” he just starts swishing the space goop around, in a circle, Kieht’s pretty sure it’s a circle, “And repeat.” 

He lets go, standing back. Keith really doesn't know what he’s doing, but he tries to follow the pattern, and apparently, he does it right. Hunk nods, a small smile on his face, and goes back to his own. “Keep track of how long you’ve been stirring. If you’re not sure, just stop.”

Wiat, fuck, he already messed up. With his head pounding, counting is nearly impossible. 

He stops, fully, putting the bowl on the counter, and staring at the little shit. It’s dumb as hell, cooking shouldn’t be this hard. 

His hands start to shake, and Keith knows he needs to calm down. Something’s going to happen if he can’t calm down, but-

“Hey, Keith,” Hunk says, worry laced in his voice, “Let’s just, put the whisk down.” 

God, Hunk sounded like he was trying to corral a rabid animal.

With a sigh, and a deep breath in, Keith sets down the whisk. He hadn’t even noticed how tightly he was holding it till now, in a death grip. The plastic had cracked, only slightly, but it had still cracked a bit. 

“I think i’m going to-” 

Hunk gestures wildly, concern on his face, “No, no, just wait in here. I’m practically done, then you can help me serve.” 

Well, alright then. Hunk finished up his own space goop, then takes the bowl that Keith was using and finishes that one up too, till they’re both glistening that weird green-ish blue color. All Keith knew was that he didn’t like that color and that he was also colorblind. 

Either way, he was handed plates by Hunk, and then cups, and while barely managing to hold it all, he followed Hunk through the corridors into their dining hall. His headache was getting worse by the second.

Thankfully, he gets to the table quickly, setting it all down before he can break anything else today. Hunk gives him another weird look, but focuses on passing out plate between the spots, and scooping food. 

“I’m gonna go grab everybody,” Hunk says, looking between Keith and the door, “Are you alright to-”

“Fine,” Keith cuts him off, “I’ll wait in here.” 

Hunk nods, and then everything is silent. Keith takes his normal seat, staring at the spot next to him, the spot where-

He shakes his head, no, can’t fall down that hole again. He felt terrible, his head hurt worse than he ever thought it could, and something in him just ached, he can’t fall down the whole of self depreciation, or he’ll be even worse.

Slowly, people trickle in, starting with Shiro, who’s looking liek a concerned dad. Keith can’t look at him for more than a few seconds before feeling like he’s going ot cry again, so he doens’t. 

Then, Allura and Coran come in, just as silently as Shiro, followed by Pidge, and finally, Lance and Hunk. 

Lance’s face is red, like he was just crying. He probably was. Keith swallows harshly, already feeling tears line his eyes. Lance stopped, to look at Keith, and Keith could see him start to cry, before he looked away, and sat in Hunk’s spot. 

Hunk sat between the two, Keith couldn’t even see Lance at this point. He wasn’t sure if that made him want to cry more or less.

The table was stiff, everyone was silent, as if they were waiting for a bomb to explode. Keith refused to look up from his food, the only noise was the clanking of silverware on plates. His space goo still didn’t taste good, and now that he knew it was apparently highly combustible, he really didn’t want to eat it, but if it meant that he didn’t have to try to talk to anybody, it was fine.

Coran clears his throat, standing up from his seat. “We’re commencing another round of mental training after this meal,” Pidge groans. They really hated them, their mind practically went a million miles per minute, or at least, that’s what it felt like to Keith, it was hard to stop thinking ofr even a second.

“Oh Number Five, it’ll be fun! We’ll be trying out a new exercise, one that I believe everyone will enjoy,” he looked between the entire table, Keith didn’t really think he could enjoy anything right now. “It will be to play a game!”

Pidge slams their hands onto the table, “I’m in.” Hunk nods his agreement.

“It’s an old game from my childhood, I didn’t even realize I still had it. You’ll be controlling a character through your mind, where you have to go through checkpoints and complete achievements. 

Keith didn’t play too many video games, but this really didn’t sound too bad. If anything, it was something to do. 

“Well, paladins, let's get to it then!” Coran leaves the table, and Keith rethinks his want to actually go do that. He really didn’t want to stand up, but he stands up with a sigh, waiting for Lance to leave, before turning around. 

Shiro’s waiting for him, with a sad look on his face. “Let's get going, I want to see what game we’re going to be playing,”

Keith gives him a weak smile, “I bet it’s like flappy bird,” Shiro gasps. They had a competition at some point to see who could get further into flappy bird. It had lasted two months, and ended with Shiro 'accidentally’ destroying his phone.

Keith really fucking hoped it was flappy bird. The pain in Shiro’s eyes would be enough to make him happy, at least temporarily. 

They walk through the hallways, finally getting into the training room. The rest of them were being outfitted with the helmets. Keith still thought they were weird, but it was almost okay. 

Walking in, and sitting down, Coran began getting them set up, and explaining the rules. Keith really didn’t understand any of it, but he would probably be fine learning while going.

Or at least, he thought he would.

The devices take over, and they end up in a world that looked almost like a maze. Goddammit mazes sucked. Words flared over the top of his vision, but it’s something in altean, so he can’t read it.  
Maybe learning a few dead languages wouldn't be so bad. 

Keith tries to press forward, to move his body forward, but nothing budges. What the-? 

“Why can’t I move?” Lance’s voice comes through whatever weird mind meld they’re in. 

“I can’t move either,” Hunk says. Keith doesn’t know how he knows this, because he can’t see Pidge, but he can tell they just nodded. 

“Everyone try moving forward right now,” Shiro says, and Keith tries to take a step, nothing working, “Try to step forward with your right foot.” 

Oh fuck this. This was some type of weird mind meld where unless they were all focused towards one thing, it wouldn’t work, wasn’t it? This sucked ass.

“Alright, Paladins, left foot,” Oh my god, Keith just wanted to groan. This was dumb, beyond dumb. It would take forever to do this, they couldn’t just sprint through the maze. 

Slowly, they take a few more steps, before coming up on the first corner. Lance’s voice pitches up first, “I say we got left,” 

“Right,” Keith decides to say. A level of unease floats through the air. 

“Uh,” Hunk says, timidly, “there’s a trick to mazes-”

Lance cuts him off, “You always go left, till you can’t go left, so let’s go left.” 

“You can do the same thing with right.” Keith adds, feeling kind of pissed off. 

“The exit is statistically more likely to be on the left,” Pidge adds in. Seriously, shut the fuck up. 

Finally, Shiro pitches in, “Let’s go left, right foot,” god damnit. Keith holds back a sigh, as they come across another two way corner. This was going to take forever.

When they finally made it out, it’d been about three hours. Keith was done with it after twenty minutes, and their arguing had only gotten worse. He didn’t try to, he knew his headache got worse with everything he said, but, he was just so damn pissed, he had to say something. 

He pulls off the helmet thing, blinking his eyes. Damn, that felt good to finally be out, even if his headache had gotten worse. 

Oh, it took him a second. His headache had gotten a lot worse, to the point where it was hard not to focus on it. It felt like it took up his entire brain, his entire everything. It didn’t feel good.  
With a sigh, he slowly stands up, glancing towards the rest of the group. They didn’t look to good, mostly just different levels of upset, but Coran was excitedly teetering between them and Allura. 

“How was it? It was my favorite game,” he smiles, on the edge of his nonexistent seat.

Shiro luckily talks before the rest of them, “ It was a perfect team building exercise,” oh my god, it was not. Keith’s about ready to sigh or be snarky, but Shiro keeps up the conversation, and shoos the rest of them away. 

Keiht barely gets out of the door when an alarm goes off. The same alarm that went of the day before. Goddammit. 

They rush out of the room, into the hangar. Keith has his helmet on, and his bayard ready, even as he gets into Red. “Paladins,” Allura’s voice cuts through the com, “A Galra ship is approaching, weapons aimed at the castle. Pidge and Shiro will try to break in and destroy it from the inside out, “Oh thank god Pidge isn’t going on their own, Keith might of had a heart attack if that happened, “While the other Paladins try and distract it. Weapons are unknown at this point. Report your findings.” 

Keith glances towards Lance. His headache hadn’t managed to get worse, but it was still unbearable, they needed to stay close together.

But apparently, that didn’t matter to Lance as he shot off in the Blue lion, not even giving Keith a glance. Goddammit. Rushing to push the controls, the Red lion shoots off, easily matching Blue’s speed. 

Holy shit. The last mothership was huge, but this one is terrifying. It’s the same design, looking almost like multiple scythes all around it, but now, an energy force is gathering inside the middle, looking almost like-

“It looks like a laser,” Keith says through the coms. 

“Oh,” Allura doesn’t sound good, “This might be a bigger issue than we thought. It’s using the same type of energy we detected from the whip.” Oh shit that’s really not good. “Black and Green, do not attempt to get inside. You need to form Voltron and take this out quickly, energy levels are rising too quickly. We won’t have time to prepare for a jump.”

Well, if things couldn’t get any worse.

Shiro and Pidge weren’t too far off from where Lance, Keith and Hunk were, the problem was, Keith didn’t know if he could actually form Voltron right now. His head hurt so bad, he could barely focus.  
Lance probably wasn’t much better. Keith distantly remembered Shiro telling him something about fighting not being good. Either way, they needed to form Voltron, so he needed to suck it up. 

They nearly arrange, the thoughts almost coordinating, before something just stops, and they break apart before everything’s fully together. 

“Paladins, what just happened?” Alurra sounded really concerned now.

Shiro grunted, the Black lion was moving, getting closer to the ship, “Voltron didn’t work. Full front attack, the castle needs to try to jump, send us your coordinates after.”

This plan just sounded worse and worse. “We don’t have enough time to jump with the estimated time before the laser is fully charged.” 

“We’ll distract it,” Shiro says. Oh my god this plan was sounding terrible, “Keith and Lance, try your laser at it.” Wait-

Hitting the controls, Keith sped forward. This was not a good plan, not to any degree, but they had to at least try it. 

Zooming forwards, his laser turns on, hitting one of the arms head on. He almost yells out happily, till he realizes no damage was done. What-

Lance starts shooting at it too, and ice just melts off. 

“Uhh,” lance’s voice cuts through the coms, “we’re not doing any damage,” That’s really not good.

“Yellow, can you try and push them back, Black too,” Allura sounds frantic, “try and angle it away from the castle, we can’t jump in time,” 

Well, shit’s going down. 

Yellow and Black push forwards, but they can’t manage to get it off angle. 

“Paladins, back to the castle, the shields are going up!” 

Red shoots through space, making it into the hangar, Blue hot on his tail. Black and Yellow were further behind, Green made it in not too long after Lance. Keith was kind of worried that Black and Yellow wouldn’t make it, but luckily they get into the hangar before the shield can fully close.

Keith’s head is pounding even harder, but he watches through his lion as the blue shield pieces itself together, and the Galran laser lets loose. 

It tears the shield apart, ripping straight through it, and hitting the castle. It practically melts it away, pieces of metal and who knows what else falling apart like paper. 

Oh my god.

The laser stops after a few seconds, but the damage is chatostrapic. Keith gasps, the other paladins are freaking out, slack jawed, staring out at the damage.

“Hold tight!” Allura yells through the coms, and Keith feels like he was just thrown halfway across the room, even though he didn’t move. “We cannot attempt another jump with this amount of damage. Paladins, head to debrief.” 

Keith slowly makes his way out of Red, this wasn’t good. The lights flashed, Keith felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. The brightness of the lights wasn’t good, like the power was being drained to somewhere else.

It probably was. Keith didn’t know the layout of the castle, but it had to have hit something important, the lights didn’t just do that. 

Sighing, he follows the group out, and into the debrief room. They’re all tense, they all know what happened. If Keith could have just… none of this would have happened.

In the debriefing room, Allura was frantically tapping something, Coran rushing past their group, grabbing Pidge by their sleeve. Yelping, Pidge moved, running along with Coran, their voices echoing along the hallways till the door shuts. 

That really can’t be good. 

Their door shuts behind them, without the satisfying quiet noise it usually makes, instead just closing like a normal door. Keith really doesn’t like that. 

“Four different systems have been broken and are in need of desperate repair, and three more are barely functioning,” That’s- “Hunk, follow Pidge and Coran, Shiro, help them get a list of things we’ll need for repairs.” 

Shiro nods, giving a glance towards Keith and Lance. There’s this look in his eyes, Keith can’t stand it, it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he feels like he just kicked a puppy. 

At least he didn’t actually kick a puppy.  
“Red and Blue, I understand there were, complications,” Allura narrows her eyes at them, “But you must put that aside, at least for missions. The sake of the universe is on your shoulders.” Keith's nods weakly, unwilling to look her in the eye. “You two are to watch and make sure that ship does not approach again.” 

“Yes, Princess,” Lance says, he’s not looking up either, Keith sees with a sidewards glance, that just makes him feel even worse. 

“Good,” Allura smiles weakly, “Just watch these screens, tell me if anything gets within these borders,” 

Wow, this was great. Keith never felt so bored, and his mind kept wandering to other things, to the man sitting next to him. 

Even as they sit there, for nearly two hours, nothing pops up. Coran and the others come running in, checking the screens and other statistics that Keith really doesn’t understand, but nothing really seems to be as bad as they thought.

Eventually, they all gather back in the debrief. Keith continues to watch the screens, but Lance leaves, to go sit next to Hunk. Hunk and Pidge are covered in that weird space grease stuff, Shiro too, but Allura and Coran look like they came out unscathed. 

“So Paladins,” Coran starts, twisting his mustache, “The castle is in tip top shape, ish,” He looks off to the side, “Only two systems are no longer functioning, thanks to the genius of Number 5, but we need to gather parts for the rest. Looks like our trip to the bazaar is coming a bit early.” 

That’s good, right? 

“We can arrive in twenty dobashes! If my estimates are right, we’ll need to take two lions to hold everything,” … How much broke that they need two lions? Keith almost sighs, but Coran keeps talking, “I believe Yellow and Black have the most space, so, shall we get to it, Paladins?” 

Pidge almost jumps into the air, “What about money? As much as I wanna find everything and then have to shoplift…” 

Shoplifting sounded like something Pidge would do, and get away with it. Luckily, Coran smiles, “Our money should still be widely accepted! If you have any troubles, make sure to com in right away, we don’t need any intergalactic quarrels right now!” Hunk laughs, uncomfortably, glancing towards the rest of the group, “All of you will have a bit of money to spend for yourselves, and a list of things to find.” Oh thank god he had a job, Keith might go insane if he had to just walk around. 

Coran looks between the group, with an uneasy smile, but a smile nonetheless, “Well Paladins, let’s get going to the hangars!” 

Following the group, Keith tried to stay behind Shiro. His head was still hurting, not as horribly but it was still much too strong. It was practically blocking his thoughts, making it so he can’t finish any thoughts or think anything through. 

Shiro goes into his lion, with Allura, and Hunk goes into his, with Lance, Pidge, and Coran. 

Keith follows Shiro, and feels as his headache gets worse.

The lions slowly lift off, and Allura glances between Shiro and Keith, an uneasy look on her face. 

“Oh,” She exclaims, reaching into her pocket, “Shiro, you’ll be with me, here’s what we’ll be looking for,” Shiro lets go of the controls, Black piloting herself perfectly fine, and Shiro looks over the list. Keith doesn’t understand half the words on it. “I believe Lance will have your list, Keith. You two do not have much, so a lot of your time can be spent browsing.” 

… Shit. Why?

They sit in silence, or at least, Keith doesn’t. Allura and Shiro are talking, something about the genius of Galran ships, and how they wouldn’t mind if they switched sides in the war. If that happened, they might not have a mission every day. 

He’s really not sure if that would be a good or bad thing at this point.

But eventually, they see a little thing in the distance, it looks just life a floating warehouse, plain gray, but as they get closer, Keith sees the thing start to flicker. 

Then, they hit something, the Black lion pausing, Shiro gasping, but pushing forwards. Whatever it was felt almost like a waterfall, but once they push through, it’s not longer a warehouse. 

In front of them is almost like islands, with ropes connecting them together, barely holding everything. It’s chaotic, people are moving constantly, aliens that Keith couldn't ever dream up, everywhere. Ships are parked everywhere, almost thrown haphazardly around. 

“The air should be breathable for humans,” Allura says, with a tone that does not give Keith confidence, “But you should remain in your space suits, just in case someone falls off. 

Oh god, now Keith could only think about falling off. They usually wouldn’t go far, its space(duh), but it looked like they had some gravity machine set up, no items were floating away, anywhere in the huge area, it had to be at least 2 miles at the very least. Trying to find everything would be impossible. 

Shoving on his helmet, Keith stares out into the bazaar, no one has even noticed the two giant lions. They were too busy looking sketchy.

Shiro shuts off the Black lion, and begins heading out, Keith not far behind him, as Allura leads them towards the Yellow Lion. Hunk and Pidge were staring at their list, talking almost excitedly between them, Keith didn't understand any of it.

He glances towards Lance, who's standing almost awkwardly behind Hunk, looking towards the ground with a list in his hand. From what Keith saw on Shiro’s list, his was nearly taking up the entirety of the albeit small paper. Lance’s might have had two things. 

Wow, alright. That’s what trust felt like. Or maybe the fact that neither of them knew jackshit about the actual castle and didn’t really want to learn. 

Maybe Lance wanted to learn, he would be smart enough to. Keith’s still watching Lance, as Coran starts explaining something, when Lance looks up, staring him dead in the eyes.

Keith’s face turns bright red, and he glances away. He wasn’t sure if his headache just got better or worse, but either way, he started to pay attention to Coran. 

“Meet back here in a Varga, com in for any problems. That should be it,” 

Allura voices in, “Try and avoid fights,” 

Coran nods, “Yes, that as well.” He glances between them, before nodding again, “Best of luck, Paladins.” Coran looks very pointedly between Keith and Lance. “Well, Princess and Number one, let's get going!”

Shiro glances towards Kieht a look in his eyes that roughly translates to ‘don’t fuck this up’ and then he’s gone.

Lance grabs Hunk’s sleeve, before he can run away with Pidge, “Bro, hermano, my best platonic dude,”

“Lance,” He says, a almost scary incredibly dull tone in his voice, “Don’t do this,” 

“Hunkkkkkk,” In dramatic fashion, draping himself over Hunk, or as close as he can get cause he is definitely not that tall, Hunk looks incredibly uncomfortable. Keith scoffs, and Lance glances away from Hunk, to him.

Then, without a fight, Lance lets go of Hunk, and stands there awkwardly, as Pidge and Hunk quickly walk away, chattering between the two of them. 

“So-?”

“Yeah,” 

Lance looks at the list, muttering something under his breath, something that sounded like ‘dumb alien tech’

“What do we need to find?” Keith asks, not looking towards Lance but instead around him. He really can’t tell what half this stuff is, some things look vaguely human, but never actually something from Earth. 

“Uhh, some parts for inside a motor, literally just gears. They gave us the easy job,” Lance shoves the paper in front of Keith, who takes it, it just says gears, with different numbers after them. He really hopes lance understands this stuff. “Oh my god,” lance stops, pointing at a stand, “Are those face masks?” 

“Uhh,” Keith doesn’t get a chance to respond, before Lance is running up, dragging him along with. 

“Hey,” Lance says, a smooth tone to his voice, confidence practically radiating from him, “Are these face masks?” 

The alien at the stall brights up, literally. She almost looked like an angler fish, with big teeth out of her mouth, and a fish looking body with legs, but when Lance starts talking, parts of her skin start lighting up. “Yes! We have face masks for any biology, just give me your species and I can show you the section.”

Lance’s eyes widen, Keith mumbles an oh my god, before shit goes down and Lance spends all their money. 

“Human? If you have that, I guess we’re pretty distant.” The alien just smiles, and reaches over, pulling out something, and Lance’s eyes widen, “Oh my god! I use this stuff! How’d you find it?” 

She puts a finger? A tentacle? Whatever it is, onto her mouth, “I have associates, and have been seeing more humans than normal lately,” 

Keith’s eyes widen, “What?” 

She nods enthusiastically, “Humans have been escaping from the Galra pretty frequently, that’s what happened to you, right? I don’t know why the Galra would use humans, but if that’s what they choose, then, I’m just glad it’s not my planet.” 

Keith’s gaping, and Lance is silent, “We didn’t, uh,” 

“A friend of ours was, we just rescued him.” Lance answers, still wide eyed, “Do you know where they’re coming from?” 

She shrugs, “I’ve heard a lot, there’s a group being used as entertainment, and scientists, and some are used as experiments.” Oh god, Keith grimaced, he couldn’t even imagine. “For the most part, they’re kept on the bigger ships, seven quadrants over.” 

“Oh,” Keith’s voice is quiet, “Thank you,” 

Lance nods, and she starts waving enthusiastically, passing Lance his bag with another tentacle(?), “Have a nice quintant!” 

Keith tries to smile as they walk away, glancing at Lance, who has a nervous expression, “That’s-” 

“A lot,” Keith nods in agreement, his stomach is feeling queasy, at least his headache is slowly going away. 

Wait, his headache! 

They’re both still feeling off, but Lance starts walking around, pulling Keith with him, and gawking at anything and everything. 

“Keith, Keith! Do you see that?” He points at a kickball, “I literally had that kickball, dios mio, can we get it?” 

“Keith, look! We should totally get that, it looks like a hair curler,” 

“Le gasp! If I get this, we could totally have a spa night!” Lance turns, eyes widening, Keith is vaguely concerned, “We’re going to have a spa night tonight.” 

“Uhh,” Keith starts, even more concerned, and looking at the multiple bags lance was carrying at this point. Not all of them were human, they didn’t even know if the human ones were fully human. 

“Nope, you can’t get out of this!” He smiles, grabbing his arm, “I already have face masks, and there’s towels at the castle, plus all the hair stuff I got. So we just need to find like, nail polish, and oh my god we need bathrobes. It’s not a spa night without them.” 

“I think there’s bath robes in the castle. And you can probably ask Allura for nail polish,” Keith tries, they still had to buy stuff on their list, and lance was running low on money. 

Lance purses his lips, giving Keith this look, almost like a puppy, “But it’s not the same, it’s gotta be new stuff.” Keith’s about to stop this train of thought, but Lance is already dragging him away. “And look, there’s a thing with all the parts we need,” he points towards a stand, filled with random parts. “Keiithhhhh? Spa night? Please?” 

Keith smiles, huffing before nodding, and lets himself be pulled away by an excited Lance. He quickly digs through the pile of parts at the stand, grabbing what Keith really hopes is what they needed, and pays, using up almost all the rest of his money. 

“Alright, shit. I might be able to talk us into some discounts, but-” Lance is counting the money in his hand, Keith has no clue what it's actually worth, but 50 of whatever it was got them this far. 

Reaching into his pocket, Keith pulls out all of his unspent money, and hands it to Lance, “Here,” Lance’s eye widen, looking between Keith and the money, “I don’t even know what I’d buy,” 

Then, Lance is pulling him into a hug, “Oh my god thank you! Follow me, we only have like, twenty more minutes to get everything!” 

Rushing around, Lance almost spends all of their combined money. Keith took a few bags from him, and shoved most of it into one or two bags, so they no longer look insane. 

“Carrying bags does not make you look insane, Keith,” 

“Yes it does,” 

Lance just sighs, smiling, but sighs nonetheless. Their time is almost up, so without too much of a fight, Keith had to first convince Lance that they did not need whatever random thing Lance was holding onto, it might have been something that he remembered from Earth, but they did not need whatever random junk that he found. 

They jetpack across the area, avoiding the movement of everything and everybody else, and head straight for the Lions. It didn’t seem like too many people noticed them coming in, but now, there were more than a few people trying to hide, slowly getting closer to their ships, but most seemed scared away by Shiro. 

Shiro was pretty intimidating. He was literally carrying what had to be an engine for a jet, it was huge, almost bigger than him. He didn’t even look like he was struggling, his robot hand had to be helping a lot, but even then…. 

Keith and Lance dropped onto the ground, and the entire group seemed to take in a collective breath, fear on their faces. 

Lance’s eyes widen, in excitement, to the group's absolute surprise. Keith watched as they all instantly calmed down, no longer looking like they were expecting a bomb to drop, “So,” Lance says, a smirk on his face and a glint in his eyes, “Spa night?” He held out face masks, and something that vaguely looked like something used to torture somebody.

Hunk smiled, “Yeah, buddy, sounds good.” 

With a curious look on her face, Allura asks, “What is a spa night?” And Lance’s eyes widen.

“This is a team bonding exercise,” he says, with utmost confidence, throwing the things he grabbed back in the bags, “No one can get out of it. This includes you Pidge.” Grumbling, Pidge doesn’t say anything, but attempts to hide behind Hunk. “I’ve got everything, it’ll be great.” 

Shiro glanced towards Keith, craning his neck past the engine to see what’s going on, and keith really can’t tell what his expression means. It kind of looks happy, maybe nervous? Either way, Keith is confused. 

“Alright Paladins,” Coran says excitedly, clapping his hands together, “Let’s get going!” Shiro almost immediately sighs, the engine looked incredibly heavy, keith didn’t blame him. Carefully, it was lowered down into the storage in the Yellow Lion, and everything else was placed in one of the lions. 

Coran, Allura, and Shiro go into the Black Lion. Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge go into the Yellow lion. Keith catches the sight of a grin from Shiro, but ignores that asshole, and sits down in the yellow lion, next to Lance. 

“So Hunk,” Lance asks, a curious tone in his voice, “Did you find any foooood?” 

Laughing, and pressing buttons on the Yellow Lion, Hunk nods enthusiastically, “I couldn’t find a lot of Earth stuff, but I did find a bit, and then actual alien food.”

Pidge nods, “No more space goop.”

“No more space goop!” Lance adds in, “We should have a real dinner tonight, then the spa night. Ooh, and you’ll never guess what I found.” lance leans in, like he’s telling them some big secret, “There was a vcr. And cassettes!”  
Pidge laughs, almost falling over themself, “Oh my god that’s so incredibly dumb. I’m totally in for spa night, now.” 

“Now, Pidge? Now?”

Keith starts to tune them out, watching the space in front of them. His headache was almost gone. The world almost felt right. 

They eventually dock into the hangar, and after putting everything away, Keith finds himself in the empty hangar with Shiro. 

Smiling, Shiro walks a bit closer, “Good job,” and pats his back, wtf? 

“For what?” Shiro just laughs, and turns around, “Wait, Shiro, no. For what?” 

“You’ll see eventually,”

“Shiro.” He just gets laughed at. That asshole. 

Grumbling under his breath, Keith walks out of the hangar, following behind Shiro. Shiro walks too damn fast. The damn gay walking sterotype was not true for Keith, but Shiro practically worshiped that sterotype. And, he didn’t even notice how quickly he was walking! 

Finally, after walking too fast for too long, the two end up in the kitchen, with the rest of the Paladins. The kitchen almost smells normal, not like it’s normal smell of impending explosion. Hunk’s mixing up something green, that looks vaguely like a salad.

Keith really hopes that it is a salad. 

Looking up, Hunk smiles, before going back to whatever he was doing, “This will hopefully be salad, whatever I grabbed looked like salad.” Hunk pauses, eyes lighting up, “I found some vinaigrette sauce, too! At least, it probably is,” 

Pidge smirks from the other side of the room, messing with whatever tablet they were currently on, Keith lost track of how many they really had at this point, “Scans showed it was similar to our version of each thing. But it’ll make everything more interesting anyway.”

“Great,” Keith swallows, hoping that this isn’t the way he’s going to die.

“Everything should pretty much be done, I can’t get the vinnegarate to react how I want it to,” under his breath, Keith hears Hunk muttering something about chemicals. Keith is not touching whatever that sauce was. 

Passing out bowls, and not even bothering to go into their formal dining room, the Paladin dig in, Coran and Allura right behind them. 

“It tastes,” Lance starts, trailing off as he chews more. 

“Almost like cabbage,” 

Nodding, Pidge exclaims, “But it looks like lettuce, and the vinnegarate doesn’t taste too off, just really battery acid-y.” 

Keith’s even more glad he didn’t try it now. 

“How the fuck do you know what battery acid tastes like?” 

Not much later, after finishing their almost Earth dinner’s, Lance spits off a quick, “Wait here!” Before practically sprinting out of the room, to go grab who knows what. 

Oh shit. The spa night, Keith had almost forgotten. He almost wants to try and escape, but, at the same time… everything with Lance was so rocky right now. Keith didn’t want to try and risk it.

So, Keith took a deep breath, and sat his ass down. Pidge was still doing whatever Pidge was doing, probably hacking something, while Hunk was finishing the rest of the salad, splitting it between him and Shiro. Shiro always ate 10 times his body weight, and never gained any weight. It was insane. Keith had heard more than a few conversations between Hunk and Lance, as they watched Shiro eat.

Allura and Coran are quietly chatting, Keith doesn’t bother to try and listen, they both looked calm, and honestly, he didn't care that much. He really just wanted Lance to come back already.

Slowly, his headache grows, as he feels Lance get farther and farther away. Did he leave the stuff in the lions? 

He probably did. Keith almost has to stifle a laugh. They might have been moved, too, to wherever Pidge and Coran were working, and then they’d have to spend three hours looking through everything trying to find them. 

Eventually, Keith’s headache starts getting better, and Lance kicks the door to the kitchen open, his smile confident, looking excited.

“Who’s ready for spa night?” 

Hunks nods enthusiastically, “Let’s get going,” 

Keith definitely isn’t sure what’s happening, Lance is a flurry of random products. His soulmate starts with Hunk, giving him a face mask and something else that looked vaulgely like a torture device, and then Pidge, who barely let him put on a face mask. They were now sitting back, still staring at their tablet, but with a relaxed expression. 

Then, Lance moves to Shiro, Coran, Allura, and he finally stops at Keith. He has a small smile on his face, pulling out a face mask. “Have you ever done a face mask before? “ Keith shakes his head, slightly worried, as the picture on his definitely did not look human. “Alright, you’ve just gotta relax, alright?” 

Slowly, trying to relax, Lance smiles a bit brighter. 

Oh, alright. Keith felt himself relax into his soulmates touch, as Lance puts a hand on his head, and- 

“Is that fucking slime?” Keith blurts out, as whatever the fuck that was touches his head. Lance jerks back.

Keith breathes in, sharply, he just fucked up, oh no. Everything was almost okay again, and he just-

Then, Lance breaks out laughing, clutching his chest, holding a hand to his face, barely able to make out the words through his laugh, “Oh my god. Keith.” his words stumble, still laughing, as the rest of the paladins chuckle with him. Keith’s still somewhere between anxiety and relief, “Its not- dios mio. You’re amazing.” Taking a deep breath, and pulling himself together, while Keith’s trying not to blush, Lance bites his lip, speaking slowly, “It’s like, chemicals mostly, but it’s good chemicals,” 

“Good chemicals? Never heard of it.” 

Lance smirks, “This one’s used to burn the faces off unsuspecting spa- goers. Very effective, as well,” 

“Count myself, lucky, then,” Keith says, smiling along, feeling his mood improve almost instantly. 

“Nope,” Lance says, taking a step closer, “I’ve seen your skin, have you ever washed your face, in like, the last three years,” Shiro chokes on a laugh, and Keith refuses to look at his soulmate. “So, I’m going to be melting off your face, one way or another.” 

Keith’s still smirking when Lance scoots closer, a hand on his shoulder, and the slimy thing being placed on his face. It feels terrible, and weird, and smells even worse, but Lance steps back, with an even bigger grin on his face, and Keith decides that he can ignore all that.

Lance puts one on himself, and it looks even weirder than it feels. 

Lance goes to grab something else out of the bags, and turns around, clanking something metal together. 

Oh shit a hair curler.

He’s looking directly at Keith, clanking the thingies together, with a horrible grin on his face. “Keith, can I do the honors-”

“No,”

“-of curling your hair? 

“No,” 

Lance curled his hair.

By the time the night was over, it was well past what they considered to be 3 am at this point. Lance, and almost surprisingly, Coran, went around, doing hair, as the requests got more and more extreme. First Keith got his curled, against his will, then Shiro got his little bit of hair curled. 

Next, Hunk’s was getting gelled up, and Keith didn’t think he could ever look at Hunk the same way again. He looked very emo, his whole outfit wasn’t too emo, but the combination of everything… it was amazing.

Then, Pidge said they had some pigment and that they should dye Shiro’s white patch. 

It only got worse from there. 

Eventually, everything got calmed down, and they connected their shitty little entertainment center to the first screen they found, and turned on whatever movie they had. 

Keith didn’t know the name of it, and he didn’t think he ever would. They didn’t have popcorn to throw around like in every teen rom com, they didn’t have shitty teen rom coms either.

Lance was sitting between Keith and Hunk, on a couch Keith wasn’t aware of. He really needed to look through the castle more. Keith was leaning onto the side of the couch, under a heavy blanket. With every second, he felt like he was more and more ready to pass out. 

Then, something’s scooting closer to him, Lance is grabbing onto his shoulder, under the blanket. He’s getting closer, leaning almost entirely over Keith. He doesn’t really look awake, more that right between where you’re definitely not asleep but not awake enough to think.

Lance sighs as he pulls Keith even closer, reaching for his arms, for anything that’s not clothes, and Keith feels the exact moment that his headache goes away. His head is finally clear. 

Smiling gently, Keith leans in, holding Lance by the hip. He’s practically on his lap at this point, but Lance seems pretty content, just trying to get closer to Keith. 

Neither of them notice, but Pidge takes a picture, putting it away into their file labelled ‘Klance’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there'll probably be another chapter, and maybe an epilogue? Depends on how long the final chapter is before i start the epilogue. Thanks for staying with me for this caffeine induced, 2 am written fic!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So heads up, this is the last chapter and the epilogue, so there will be a far bit of time skips. Hope you enjoy!!

It’s been two weeks, and Keith isn’t really sure what’s going on still. He and Lance are definitely okay, if not better than ever, so he has to ask himself, why haven’t they kissed? Why haven’t they completed the bond?

A little voice in his head keeps saying that it’s his fault that Lance doesn’t like him, that it’s his fault that Lance doesn’t want to be here. 

But, everytime he sees Lance, his soulmate lights up, speaking quickly and excitedly, like nothing ever happened. Lance wants it to be normal again, and Keith’s not going to complain. 

But Shiro was going to bitch about it till he dies, because Shiro had a soulmate, and he understood how horrible it was to have to be close to each other the whole time.

“Keith, you have to talk to him,” Shiro sighs, as Keith avoids eye contact, “You’ve had time to think, and you’re getting along amazingly, so what’s stopping you?”

“Shiro,” Keith deadpans, “I’m not going to mess this up, he’ll bring it up when he’s ready.” 

“Keith, goddammit, I know I told you to wait but I don’t know if he’ll ever bring it up. You're like this too, where if someone else doesn't bring something up, it doesn’t matter if the thing will kill you, you’re not going to mention it!”

Keith shrugs, and Shiro groans, “Please, just, go talk to him. Maybe bring it up, but go have a conversation about family or something.” 

“Fine, old man,” Keith grumbles out, “If it’ll make sure you don’t have a heart attack, I’ll go,”

Shiro mumbles something that sounds like ‘thank god’ and Keith decides to pick his battles, and leaves that one alone. He probably won’t win, no matter how much sass he can pull, Shiro can bench press him. 

So, walking through the hallways, Keith tries to avoid thinking about soulmates, or his soulmate’s family. Lance was always talking about them, with this happy but far away expression. Keith never really had anything like that, and hearing about it made him want for a childhood like that, for a family like that. 

Eventually, he finds himself at Lance’s door, at their door. The door opens with a silent whoosh, and he pushes in. 

Lance was drinking something that looks like a smoothie as he reads a magazine. It looked good, Keith was tempted to go to the kitchen and grab one for himself. 

Shiro would probably kill him. He needed to talk to Lance, at least for a little bit.

“Oh,” Lance looks up, taking a sip, “Hey, how’d… training go?” 

“Good,” Keith says, sitting on the bed next to him, leaning onto his shoulder. It felt nice, amazing even to just be touching Lance. Lance practically sighed into him, leaning into his touch and pulling him even closer, “What are you reading?” 

Lance smiles brightly, excitedly pushing the magazine closer to Keith, “Hunk found this! When he and Coran went for food, he found a spanish magazine! I just-” Lance’s voice cuts out, and he starts talking a bit slower, and quieter, “ I just really missed the language, English is nice and all, but spanish just feels more at home.” 

Keith purses his lips, no backing down now, “You could teach me spanish.” 

His soulmate's eyes widen, “Really?” Keith nods, “Oh my god Keith,” he’s pulled into a tight hug, as Lance talks into his shoulder, “Thank you! Dios mio, then we can talk shit about everyone else!”

Laughing gently, Keith pulls Lance a little bit closer, “Yeah,” he could kiss him, right now, “Yeah, that’ll be great.” He’s so close, Keith really could...

But he doesn’t.

“Alright, so, we should start right now, right? Cause why not?” Keith nods along, as his soulmate scoots back, grabbing the magazine and putting his back to the wall. “Soo, uhh, mierda, I don’t actually know where to start.” 

Keith really doesn't either, but he offers, “Nouns? Basic sentences?” 

His soulmate nods, “So, uh, let’s start with saying your name, alright?”

They practiced for a few hours. Keith was kind of getting somewhere. The language wasn’t too different from english, but some things really tripped him up. And he kept on forgetting basic words.

“Me llamo Lance, tengo diecinueve años ¿Y tu?” 

“Shit, uh,” keith stumbles over his words, “my name is Lance and I’m- I know you're 19, then asking me?” 

Lance smiles, holding onto Keith’s hand, “Perfecto! Now answer.”

Keith blinks, staring deadpan at his soulmate, “Me llamo Keith, yo tengo… 19 years. ¿Y tu?” 

Lance just laughs, with pain in his eyes, this was their fourth time, and Keith couldn’t remember numbers at all. One through 5 was almost okay, but everything else made him want to cry. “Maybe we should take a break? Don’t we have training today, at like, noon ish?” 

Oh shit, “We’re late to training.” 

In a flurry of panic, Keith practically trips over himself, almost falling over but managing to stay on his feet, as Lance rushes forwards, smirking back at him as the door closes.

Oh, well if they’re going to play it that way…

Rushing forwards with a new determination, Keith’s footsteps are heavy, hitting the ground hard as he sprints in shitty shoes. Lance just gets closer and closer, his slow pace wasn’t doing him any good. 

Lunging forwards, Keith hits Lance, knocking them both to the ground. He falls clumsily, and they both topple to the ground, Keith practically on top of Lance.

He’s panting, and tired, but Lance isn’t done yet, so neither is he. Without letting Lance push him off, Keith jumps off him, getting a running start, and already a good distance ahead. 

He can hear a distant yell, “Hey-” but cuts it off with a laugh. As he gets closer to the training room, with no Lance in sight, Keith relaxes, slowing his speed, panting heavily. 

Then, out of nowhere, Lance screams, and Keith jumps out of his own skin, adrenaline jumping through his system, and he’s on the ground, while Lance smirks from above.

Lance opens the door, and tries to take a step forwards, before falling flat on his face, Keith holding onto his ankle. His soulmate looks almost ready to kick him in the face when Allura finally steps in.

“Paladins!” Lance looks away, towards Allura, but Keith can’t keep his eyes off Lance, or, off what’s in front of him, “What is the meaning of this?” 

“He started it!” Lance points almost like a two year old at Keith, with a happy expression on his face. Keith scoffs, trying to hold back a laugh. 

“He deserved it.”

Lance gasps, dramatically, rolling over onto his back, a hand to his heart. “I’ve been wounded, Allura, help,” She shakes her head, leaving the two on their own, muttering something that Kieth’s probably glad he can’t hear.

Sitting up, Lance brushes the dirt off of him, before helping Keith get up. His soulmate is holding his hand and blushing, as Lance pulls him even closer so that their shoulders are brushing. 

“Paladins,” Allura says, refusing to look in their direction, “We’re trying a new exercise. Keith and Shiro will be blindfolded, and the rest of the group will have to guide them through their actions. One person will be able to move freely. Choose wisely, the robotics will be set to level 8,” 

Keith groans, level 8 sucked normally. He was thrown on his ass more times than he could count. 

“So,” Pidge starts, “Keith and Shiro are our strongest fighters, Lance behind them, so Lance should be shooting and not guiding someone. I’ll take Keith, and Hunk can take Shiro,” 

Keith nods, it sounded solid, and Pidge would be able to push him through things pretty quickly, but that almost scared him more, as he was vaguely worried about getting in the way of Shiro and Lance. 

It was almost inevitable, Keith decided, that he was going to get hurt today. Something hurt already from Lance and him fighting, but at least he didn’t have a headache from them play-fighting. 

Wait, shouldn’t he have- whatever, Keith was just glad he didn’t.

Allura started counting down, before the sound of robots being released, that pressurized steam from their joints being released, and it was time to go. 

“Keith, in front of you,” Pidge says, a moment too late. Keith gets hit, jumping backwards too slowly. “Right-” Then something’s hitting him again. Retreating backwards, he tries to listen, ignoring whatever Pidge is saying. It almost sounds like-

Something hits him again, sending him sprawling backwards, a bruise almost definitely already forming on his arm. That fucking hurt, his arm almost felt numb.

The pain was going away, but ouch. 

He had a second, before he was hit again, this time in the stomach, and the sound of fighting stopped, “Paladins, what was that?” Keith takes off his blindfold. Yep, that was already a bruise. “Keith and Pidge, what happened?” 

Keith gulps, as Pidge begins talking, loudly and angrily, gesturing wildly, “He didn’t fucking listen! I told him what to do but he never followed any of it!” 

“You told me a second before I got hit!” Keith yells back, “I stopped listening because I didn’t want to get fucking beat!” 

Pidge starts to open their mouth again, looking ready to scream. Keith feels the exact same, and will be very okay with screaming back, when Shiro jumps in, “What if Lance takes over for Pidge?” 

“No!” Lance yells, and Keith feels anxiety rush through him, “I can’t do strategies, he’ll just end up more hurt.”

Coran’s running his fingers through his mustache, “Number one, I do believe you are onto something. Soulmates are known for their good teamwork skills,” 

Lance groans, “But-”

“Nope,” Pidge shuts him down, “I wanna try a gun.” 

Everyone in the room yells no. Pidge grumbles something, before going to grab their bayard. “Fine,” 

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Keith puts back on his blindfold, this was going to be interesting.

The robots start again, and before he even hears Hunk say something, Lance is yelling out, “Left, five feet lunge,” 

Keith runs that direction, guesstimating the length, before slashing into whatever was there. It breaks in a satisfying crunch. 

“Straight right, now!” He slashes again, hitting something. “Lef-” Keith’s thrown off balance, hitting the ground hard.

“Block!” Lance yells, almost desperately, but Keith's bayard has been hit out of his hands, and Keith can't tell where it is.

Something hits him in the chest, knocking the breath out of his lungs, “Sword, to the left,” Reaching desperately, Keith feels the blade, and hears the robot begin to move again, “Move, left!” 

He turns over, almost on top of his sword, and hears as the robot swings down, hitting the ground with a thunk. Oh thank god that wasn’t him. “Move!” 

Holding onto his sword, Keith lunges to the side, really hoping the robot isn’t there. He lands awkwardly, trying to fix that while getting a better grip on his bayard. 

“Slash right,” Keith grumbles under his breath, Lance needs to be a little quieter, but hits to the right of him, the robot that was there falling hard. “In front, slam it!” 

Alright, he could do this. Rushing forward, Keith hits something in a football tackle, knocking the robot down hard. 

“Left!” “Right forwards!” “ Behind you!” Lance’s orders start coming quicker, but Keith doesn’t feel overwhelmed. Instead, he’s taking it with stride, and if his counts right, he’s already taken out 9 robots, which means there's only 3 to go.

“Exercise completed,” the robotic voice from the ceiling calls out, wait, isn’t there- Pulling off his blindfold, Keith gets reminded that the rest of the team exists. 

Coran’s looking at a screen, his eyes widening, “Number four, I believe this was your best score yet!” 

What the fuck…? “How? I couldn’t see anything.” 

“I do believe, as I said earlier, that soulmates work best as a pair.” Coran smiles at the two, “Looks like we’ll be doing this exercise more often. 

Lance groans, and Keith sighs.

After training for way too long, Keith and Lance almost immediately passed out. They barely made it to their rooms before exhaustion hit. Coran had made them stay for several hours past the rest of the team, as it was ‘vital’ for them to be able to work together better. 

Keith slowly woke up, feeling a hand on his back, pulling him closer. He was laying sideways, so was Lance, and his head was pressed up against his soulmates chin. 

Taking a deep breath to just take everything in, Keith almost felt ready to sleep again. Key word, almost.

With a sigh, he tried to push away from his soulmate, but failed. Lance moved with him, and fell at least a foot when Keith finally managed to push him off. Clingy bastard. 

Waking with a shout, Lance glances wide eyed around the room, “Are we getting attacked?”

“Nope,” 

“Well, then,” Lance props himself up, “Uhh, I guess, good morning?”

“Morning, “ Keith says, yawning again. God, he wanted to sleep some more. 

Lance bolts upright, “We should practice spanish again,” Keith almost sighs, it’s too early for that, and he desperately wants coffee. “Just a bit, please,” 

Giving in, Keith nods and sits back down on the bed, and Lance starts talking, “Buenos dias, alma gemela.” 

Keith’s eyebrows furrow, the first half had to mean good morning, but the second half- 

“That means soulmate,” Keith nods, slowly, Alma gemela. It sounded nice. “¿Cómo te sientes hoy?” 

Racking his brain, Keith slowly said, “Yo tengo bueno ¿Y tu?” 

Lance smiles, widely, reaching forwards, “Esto está haciendo que me feliz, me alegra que estés aprendiendo español, no se que mas haria,” Keith really has no clue what he’s saying, but the expression on his face…

Keith could write poems about that. He looks so happy, his eyes slightly closed and his teeth gliting. His hands are excitedly moving, gesturing as he speaks. He’s just so-

Lance puts his arms over Kieth’s shoulder, pulling them even closer as he talks even faster, “Oh my god, just, Keith, this is just amazing,” Lance stops, turning to look up at Keith, eyes widening. They couldn’t be more than a few inches apart, he’s right there.

And then, Lance is leaning in, tilting his head, and Keith almost gasps, before moving forwards. Their lips touch, Keith leans into the sensation of Lance, as he takes over everything nearby.

It’s perfect for about two seconds.

Pain takes over. It almost feels like lava being dumped over him, as everything burns. He can’t breathe, his lungs don’t want to work and his arms don’t want to move.

Then, everything stops, just as quickly as it started. He’s laying on the ground, breathing heavily, his head hurts horribly, and-

He knows Lance is still on the bed, and that he’s bleeding on his right arm. He starts to move, trying to put his hand on the ground to push himself up, when something stops him.

Shiro’s holding him down, a small smile on his face, “Stay laying down, both of you. Take a minute.” 

Keith leans back, breathing out a sigh, everything fucking hurts still, but, the feelings fading even faster now, but he can still feel the scratch on Lance’s arm.

Wait-

Pushing himself up, as Lance slowly leans up to sit on the bed, Keith stands up, clawing at his shirt. With shaky hands, it comes off, and on his chest…

There’s two giant paw prints, with stars behind them, on the left side of his chest, right over his heart. One paw print is blue, and the other is red, with the galaxy behind them. 

He looks up, to see Lance staring at him. His soulmate looks shaky, blood dripping down his arm, but then he looks up, a dark blush covering his face, “I love it,” Keith can just nod, as Shiro backs up, getting closer to the door.

“I’ll leave you two alone for now. Everyone else should stay away for a bit, but-” 

“It’s fine, Shiro,” Keith says, and then he’s gone, leaving Lance with his soulmate. 

“Oh my god,” Lance says, moving to try and get closer to Keith, “Just, Keith,” He grabs his hand, looking at him with a look that has Keith in another galaxy, “I love you,”

A feeling pushes through Keith, that he’s not sure he’s ever felt before, his words stumble, “I love you too,”

Lance pulls him closer, onto the bed, pulling him in for a kiss, and another. Keith lets his emotions pull him as everything gets stronger and faster. 

Two hours later, Shiro goes to check on them, after holding back Pidge and Hunk for nearly the whole time, and finds them asleep. He chuckles when he sees their clothes thrown to the side, and shuts the door again. 

Pidge had to call it at four hours of being kept out of their room. Everyone was ready to let them just miss lunch, after they already missed dinner and breakfast, but Pidge had to put their foot down. 

No matter what was going on, they needed to at least eat a little bit. As the protectors of the universe, they had to be able to protect when they needed to, and they couldn’t do that without fuel. 

So, Pidge marched into their room, after hacking the door, and screamed. 

“Oh my fucking god my eyes!” Keith’s woken up with a start, clutching at Lance. Then, he looks down, and desperately pulls for the blanket, trying to cover himself. 

Pidge has already turned around, covering their eyes, yelling something that Keith is trying to ignore, while Lance wakes up more, his eyes blinking slowly. 

Then, Keith’s pulled down for a kiss, as he pushes the blanket over him, Lance still doesn’t realize what’s going on. “Mmm, babe, I wanna sleep,” His arm wraps around Keith’s hip, pulling him closer. 

Pidge screams even louder. And luckily, Lance wakes up a little bit more.

“What the fuck was that?” Lance sits up, bringing Keith with him. Keith just sighs. “Pidge? Why-” Lance looks down, under the blanket, “Oh shit,”

Took him long enough. 

Pidge screeches, and walks out of the room, leaving Keith and Lance alone. 

“So,” 

Keith swallows harshly, “Pidge is never going to let us live this down.” 

“No,” Lance says, a small smirk on his face, “I’m never going to let them live this down. Go get dressed, it’s time to bully a Pidge.” Keith smirks along with him, carefully getting up. Keith didn’t know whether to try and cover up or just sprint to the closet, but Lance stands up without a care in the world, and Keith decides that maybe that doesn’t matter. 

Kissing his soulmate, they head out of their room, fully dressed. There’s a smirk on his face, and Keith’s holding his hand, not willing to let go. 

“Ready to go mess with Pidge?” Lance asks, as they stopped before the doors.

Keith squeezes his soulmates hand, “Yeah,” 

The door opens to the rest of the team eating food, something that Keith doesn’t recognize, but the smell is amazing. 

Pidge was sitting with their head down on the table, Hunk patting their back. 

The moment Allura turns to see them, her face brightens, “You’ve completed the bond! Congratulations! I wish you two a good partnership,” 

Coran nods, “May your harvests always be fulfilling,” Pidge groans, even louder, and Keith realizes that’s probably a euphemism. Eww, no Coran, please.

They sit down, and Keith doesn’t let go of his soulmates’s hand. Lance doesn't let go of his, either, which makes him feel a little bit better about being clingy, but still, he wants to tell himself to not worry about that because that man is literally your soulmate, but anxiety takes over instead. 

“So, what did the bond give you?” Coran asks, half a bite of food still in his mouth. 

Lance turns to Keith, oh shit, they completely forgot. “Uhh,” Lance rubs the back of his neck, “We didn’t check--” He’s smiling awkwardly, really hoping someone doesn’t yell at them.

Allura just coos, “Well, we have time to figure it out.” she takes another bite, Keith does too, it looks really good. “We could start right now,” Without waiting for confirmation, Allura starts talking, Keith's not understanding most of it, but she ends it with, “Did you notice anything strange, I guess would be the best place to start?” 

Lance slowly nods, “I could, like, feel that he hurt his head,” 

Keith nods too, “He had a cut on his arm, and I knew it was there before opening my eyes,” 

Allura nods, and Coran’s muttering something about young soulmates. “So, Lance, where’s your cut?” 

His soulmate looks down, at the arm Keith’s holding, and Keith reluctantly lets go. His hands trace over the spot Keith swore he felt a scratch, but nothing’s there, “I thought it was-” 

“Keith, is that where you felt it?” He nods, and Allura continues, “It could just be a basic pain sharing, but if it’s gone that quickly…” her voice goes quiet, “Does your head still hurt?” he shakes his head. “Lance, could you possibly, make a cut on your arm again? Keith, please look away.” 

Keith almost immediately says hell no, but Lance pushes his chair a few inches away, and instead, he just sighs, and turns to Shiro. 

“Do you feel anything? Pain wise?” 

Keith scrunches his face, he can feel… something, but it's’ not pain, “I know he’s hurt, it doesn’t hurt me,” 

“Interesting,” Coran says, “ I wonder,” his voice drawls on, before he looks up at them again, “Keith, try and heal his arm,” 

“I can’t just- how the hell would you even-”

“Just try, Number four, please,” Keith sighs, but reaches over to Lance. The cut is not as bad as the one before, just a light scratch. Gently, he puts his hand over it. 

He feels like a dumbass, he has no clue what to do. Is he just supposed to will it away? Or try and focus on it? Keith just doesn’t want his soulmate to be hurt anymore, is that too much to ask?

Moving his hand away, he sees that it’s gone. 

What the fuck?

Coran exclaims, loudly, pulling Keith out of whatever stupor he was in, “Healing! It’s incredibly useful for pairs in combat based jobs. Many soulmates that had healing could also heal the people around them, so we will have to test that as soon as possible,” Coran’s twisting his mustache around, muttering under his breath.

Keith turns to Lance. He sure as hell doesn't want to be here when Coran decides what to try. So quietly, speaking into Lance’s ear, Keith says, “Can we run?” 

He nods, picking up his food, and Keith does the same. Slowly, he moves away from the table, trying to be silent. Hunk definitely notices, but doesn’t say anything, and Keith’s almost sure they’re in the clear till Coran’s loud voice asks, “Wait, I’ve got it!” 

Grabbing Lance’s hand, they start sprinting out of the dining room and into the halls, and Lance says, still running, “Shit, we forgot to bully Pidge,” 

-

A few months later, the war’s getting closer to an end. All of Votlron, maybe all of the universe knows that it’s imminent. They need more recruits, more people to help them if they need it, and so, right now, most of Voltron’s sitting in at one of these meetings.

The alien race was nice, incredibly so, but they didn’t feel a need to join the war, they were more of a loving people, not a fighting one. 

But, Lance and Keith had been sent out on a mission, and were only now returning. So, hand in hand, they walked into the dining room, about ready to say hello to their fellow paladins, and make apologies for their lateness, when everything goes silent. 

None of the race is moving, all their eyes staring towards the two. 

“Uhh,” Lance says, glancing towards Keith, who has no clue what to do. It’s creepy as hell, they definitely should have read up on their customs before this. What if this was because they were holding hands? Were they homophobic? Or were they more private about stuff like this? 

The queen, or who Keith assumes has to be the queen, stands up, clearing her throat, “I was not aware you had soulmates in your group,” 

Allura nods, gesturing for them to come closer, “Yes! This is the blue and red paladins, Lance and Keith. Unfortunately, they were off-world on a mission, so I must apologize for their lateness, your majesty.”

The woman shrugs her off, “I have not read enough about Earth culture, but soulmates are regarded here with the utmost respect. Your type, “Keith almost shudders at the wording, “Are known to change the world.” She turns away from the pair, and Keith sighs, “we accept your offer,”

Wait, what?

Allura seems to be in shock, so Shiro takes over for her.

Wait, Keith ignores whatever Shiro’s saying, how did they not know Shiro had a soulmate? Did it have to be both of them present? Or was it like the alteans? 

Keith stops paying attention for the rest of the night, but has to agree, afterwards when they’re all getting drunk on the ship, that that was the easiest recruitment they've ever had.

-

  
  


The war is finally over. Keith almost can’t believe that. It’s been so long since everything happened, especially since they’ve been back on Earth. 

His head hurts horribly, like a hammer being driven into his skull, and the rest of him’s not much better. 

But Lance.. Lance feels like he’s too far away, but just as hurt as him. Reaching out, he pushes their bond onto Lance, feeling as whatever was wrong with him gets healed, and Lance does the same back to him. 

With a sigh, Keith falls back asleep, exhausted. His head still hurts like hell, but it’s not as bad, and whatever else was wrong is almost definlety healed. Lance isn’t completely better either, but Keith feels himself fading away into sleep before he can actually care.

Waking up a few hours later, Keith’s feeling much better. He pushes off whatever blankets were on him, some hospital sheets most like, and disconnects the wire and shit all around him. He couldn't have been that injured, could he?

Standing up after setting off all the alarms, Keith rushes out of his room. He can already hear the voice over the hospital speaker system calling people to his room, he can’t give a fuck. He just has to see Lance.

And luckily, Lance has to see him too. Another door opens, down the hall, and Lance limps out. He looks so defeated and tired, Keith almost feels like crying, but then, his soulmate is smiling, and rushing towards him. 

He’s pulled into a hug, as the smell of the hospital and his soulmate takes over. Tears are already lining his eyes, “Holy shit, Lance. Don’t-” sobs spill out, he tries to reel it in, but nothing he does can stop it from coming. “Don’t ever do that again.” 

Lance is crying too, smiling through the tears, “Right back at you,” Lance pulls him in again, tighter, kissing him gently, “I can’t believe that it's over.” Keith solemnly nods, before Lance grabs his hand in a panic, “What about the rest of the team?” 

“Oh shit,” Keith exclaims, both of them were in horrible shape, even now after healing, they couldn’t be much better. “Let’s go find them.” 

Lance nods, and they turn around, only to be stopped by what has to be a complete hoard of doctors and nurses, all looking terrified. 

“Uhh,” Lance says, “What’s going on?”

One of the doctor's eyes widen, “Your heart monitors stopped again, we-” 

“Again?” his soulmate exclaims, eyes widening as he turns to Keith. Oh my god, how long had they been out. 

The doctor nods, still looking scared, “Neither of you should have woken up yet, you should get back to bed…” 

Lance shrugs him off, and Kieth’s glad that he’s willing to talk, because right now Kieth can’t trust his voice to not squeak with anxiety in front of all these people, “Where’s the rest of the team?” 

“You really should-” 

Lance narrows his eyes, and Keith’s even a little scared, if it wasn’t so hot, “Where is the rest of my team?” 

Cowering, the doctor says to follow him. They walk not too far down the hallway, and the doctor opens a door to Hunk.

He looks terrible. Lance rushes forwards, limp even more apparent. Keith desperately wants to heal him, but he knows that if Hunk is this bad, the rest of them have to be bad too, and they won’t have the energy to do anything if he fully heals Lance. 

So, with a sigh, he walks up to meet Hunk, the doctor still standing nervously near the door. Grabbing his soulmate's hand, they push forward energy towards Hunk, and watch as his injuries slowly heal. 

He’s not fully healed, but they have more work to do.

The doctor's eyes are widening even more, but he continues to lead them to the rest of the paladins. Shiro isn’t… too bad. He’s still injured, but so far, he has the best concussion. 

Maybe that’s not how Kieth should word it, but Shiro was the easiest to heal so far. After that, there’s Pidge, who looks so small under the hospital sheets. The pair heals them, with a glance back at them. 

All the damage made Keith want to puke, it was terrible and it was everywhere, but there wasn’t much they could do right now. Exhaustion was hitting him harder every second, they needed to sleep now, before they passed out in a hallway. 

The doctor tries to direct Lance away from Keith’s room into his own, but can’t do anything as they lay down on one bed, Keith already grabbing tightly onto Lance. 

If they try to move him, he will fight a bitch. 

Luckily, they fall asleep quickly, and Keith finds himself awake for what has to be a few hours later. 

Their room is full, and loud. People who look like Lance are sitting in the corner, talking amongst themselves, while Krolia is standing near the door, almost on defense. The rest of the paladins, and Coran, are set up on chairs across the wall. 

Keith smiles to himself, before laying his head back down, breathing into Lance’s chest. Everything would be alright, he thinks, as sleep takes him again. 

Keith assumes it's only been a few hours since he woke up last. He almost couldn’t believe it as memories rushed over him again, they were really done fighting the galra.

The room was much quieter now. There was a small group of what had to be Lance’s family asleep in the corner, and Krolia sat by the door. Her ears perked when she noticed Keith was awake, and Lance was slowly coming to.

He still felt exhausted, but pushed through it, forcing himself to sit up. “Krolia,” He says, his throat was dry, the words coming out horribly. 

“Yes, Keith?” she walks closer. There’s stress practically radiating off her, she must have stayed awake for this whole time, unwilling to let something happen to them, he’ll have to thank her later. 

“Is everyone else okay?” She nods, a bit of humor on her tongue, but she doesn’t add anything else in. At this point, some of Lance’s family were beginning to wake, as what Keith was pretty sure was Lance’s oldest sister, shook their parents awake. 

Lance scooted up, holding onto Keith. His soulmate wasn’t hurt anymore, nothing seemed wrong, Keith noticed, good. Then, Lance hasn’t looked around the room yet and is not awake enough to think, he kisses Keith. 

A blush goes over Keith’s whole face, as Lance’s family looks shocked, and Lance finally notices that they're here.

“Wait,” Lance looks over the entire room again, eyes falling on Krolia, then onto his family, “What-” 

Krolia cuts him off, “You were asleep for nearly 4 days, after healing the rest of your teammates. You need more sleep, please-” 

Lance definitely doesn't mean to cut her off, but his face turns bright red, even more red than Keith’s, as everything sets in his brain. 

“Mami,” his voice is trembling. Lance starts talking in rapid spanish, Keith’s picking up most of it, he’s telling them that this is Keith, he’s the blue paladin and keith’s the red, and then his voice slows down, before he slowly says, “El es mi alma gemela,”

Lance’s mother gasps, and the entire family is silent. Krolia looks ready to start a fight, leaning backwards, hand on her knife, before Lance’s mom breaks out crying. “Dios mio, Lancito, I can’t believe my baby,” She rushes forwards, pulling Lance into a tight hug, then letting go, and pulling Keith.

Keith really doesn't understand what’s going on, but is letting it happen. Krolia looks like she doesn't either, but luckily she does not look like she's ready to stab them anymore. 

“You’re going to have to tell me everything soon,” His mom says, through the tears, “But right now, you need to sleep.” 

Lance nods slowly, and Keith yawns, laying back down. Lance practically layed down on top of him, and Keith felt his face heat up, he really didn’t know what to do. His soulmates family was right there, as Lance was cuddling him. 

A few minutes into his crisis, he passes out, Krolia lets out a sigh, hoping he can sleep for more than a few hours. 

It was about 6 hours later when they finally wake up to an empty room. Keith has to look over everything twice before he believes it. Krolia would not have left without a fight, he almost can’t believe the rooms actually empty.

Lance slowly comes to next to him, yawning. “Wait,” Lance slowly leans up, “We should go… do something.” 

“Do something?” Keith still feels exhausted, but no longer on the verge of passing out. “Like what?” 

His soulmates lips purse, “I don’t know, but we shouldn’t just sit here,” He glances around the room, “The other paladins were doing… better, right?” Keiht nods, “So what about everyone else that was hurt?” 

Oh my god, Keith could just kiss his soulmate right now. 

Pulling Lance in for a kiss, Keith’s smiles brightly, still exhausted, but the feelings fading away, “Let's go find them, then,” 

It doesn't take long, but the two wind up avoiding the nurses and doctors, and find themselves in a wing of injured people. A lot of them didn’t look too bad, Keith just had to hope that this was the worst of the worst, and they weren’t putting their energy into people who weren’t in a life or death situation.

They slowly go through the room, healing person after person. Luckily, a majority of them were sleeping, so there weren't many thank-you’s, Keith wasn’t sure if either of them could handle that right now.

There was a young girl with a broken femur, and a man missing an eye. A couple with collapsed lungs and broken ribs. An old man with bruises and broken bones everywhere. 

But then, they came across someone that could have been their age, with a broken spine. They weren’t awake, no one was near them, but their paper said that they wouldn’t walk again. 

The look Lance gave him almost made Keith want to cry. Keith wanted to heal him, but exhaustion was already hitting him hard, almost making him just want to lay down and sleep right here. 

“We have to heal him,” Lance says, quietly. Keith slowly nods, biting his lip, he didn’t think he’d be able to even stand after that. After all their practice, they’d learned how much energy each thing would take. Healing each other wasn’t hard, it never took much energy unless they were both really hurt. Other people took more energy, and more time. This guy would be devastating to whatever energy they had left.

Slowly, Keith reached for Lance’s hand, and they pushed their energy forwards. 

Keith’s not really sure what happened after that. All he knows is that they end up sitting on the ground of the hospital room, Lance’s head tucked into his shoulder, and Shiro’s tapping his head. 

Muttering under his breath, Keith tries to put as much anger into his words as possible, he’s still tired as fuck right now, and did not want to be awake, “Fuck off, asshole. I’m sleeping.” 

Shiro just laughs, and Keith realizes that he won’t be able to sleep again anytime soon. “We’ve been looking for you for a few hours now,” 

“What?” Lance asks, scaring Keith. He didn’t know he was awake. “We’ve only been here for like, twenty minutes.” 

Shiro looks more like a dad now than ever, “You two disappeared around lunch, and it’s almost 9. And doctors around here are claiming miracles for half the people in this room,” Shiro jabs his thumb to the bed next to them, where a young man was sitting up to look at them, “Mostly this guy, did you two…?”

“You can’t just expect us to do nothing, Shiro,” Keith sharply says, sitting up a little bit taller, “We have this thing, we might as well use it.” 

“Well now, this thing,”Shiro says it pointedly, with a nervous look on his face, “People are already guessing what’s going on between you too.” 

“Oh shit,” lance blurts out, “What-”

Shrugging, and cutting Lance off, “There isn’t anything you can do but stop.” Keith’s about to say something, and so is Lance, “Come on, there’s a meeting with the Garrison people that have sticks up their asses.” 

With a sigh, Lance and Keith stand up. They’re getting looks from the people around the room, of admiration, and also kind of fear. 

Shiro leads them farther into the area, till they end up in front of a room with two guards at the door. They nod to Shiro, glancing towards the sleep deprived Keith and Lance, and let them in.

Inside, there’s a ton of Garrison assholes, and the paladins. Thank god they were there. They’d be able to hold Keith back from punching somebody. 

Once they’re all sitting, the person at the head of the table, Kieth, couldn't remember her name right now but it really didn’t matter either. She was just droning on and on about numbers and dumb shit, and he was tired. 

Then, he hears his name, and almost immediately tries to pay more attention, “I don’t understand how, but Keith and Lance seem to be the most exhausted out of the all the paladins, even though they had the least of the injuries. None of you should have been awake any time soon, we’ve had to push a lot of plans into motion earlier than expected,” 

Lance glances towards him, asking permission, and Keith shrugs. He didn't particularly care at this point, a lot had happened, and aliens had weird abilities. They might not be used to it, but hiding it would only last so long. 

“Uhh, well,” Lance starts, “We can kind of heal people? I guess?”

Her face twists into curiosity, “How?” The rest of the board looked vaguely curious as well.

“So, uh,” Lance starts, stammering over his words. 

“Soulmate ability.” All eyes fall onto Keith, oh shit that’s creepy. “We can heal,” Shiro looks concerned, and so does the rest of the paladins, but Coran.. Well. 

They hadn’t seen a lot of Coran, but after what happened to Allura, he was definitely hitting some hard times. He kept trying to put up the same face, the same personality, but there was something lacking.

But, nonetheless, Coran comes out strong, a glint missing in his eye, “Oh yes, red and blue have a particularly strong bond! I haven’t seen one like the likes of them in quite a while!” 

All the eyes that had fallen on Coran shifted back to the two of them, and Keith hated this even more. 

“We’re working on healing people in the hospital, it just takes a lot of energy,” Lance tries to explain,”We’re really tired cause of that, but -”

He hears a muttered, “amazing,” and Lance goes quiet. They sit in silence for a moment, before the boss lady takes over again. 

Keith didn't really pay attention, though. He was asleep on Lance’s shoulder. Pidge cackles quietly, or as quietly as one could cackle, and takes another picture.

-

It takes a while to get Earth back to relative peace, and for the entire time of that, the whole team is working nonstop. 

They barely had time to themselves, using their lions and anything at their disposal to get everything back to normal. Keith wasn’t really sure if it would ever really be back to normal, so many people didn’t have homes or jobs, and so many more were left with terrors of what happened. 

Keith didn’t sleep a lot, neither did Lance. They worked through the nights, trying to get just the most basic of places rebuilt or the rubble cleaned from the area. It was hard work and exhausting, but every time they hit the bed, there was always something else that they could be doing that was more important. 

Shiro caught on to what was happening pretty quickly, and decided that they needed a break, where people would make sure they weren’t doing anything, so he sent them to Lance’s parents house.

Keith, for one, did not want to go, and Lance really wasn’t sure. Lance had wanted to go back to Earth and see his family for so long, that now when they had to choose, his soulmate didn’t know what to think.

But, they didn’t get a choice, at least, not really. Shiro wouldn’t let them do anything even if they ran away and started helping again, and he was pretty sure their lions wouldn’t let them either. Goddamn Black lion.

Lance squeezed his hand, “I mean, it won’t be bad,” His eyes glance forwards, at the house in front of them, “Your spanish has gotten a lot better, so we can’t exactly talk shit about you right in front of you.”

“That’s so comforting, Lance. Thank you so much,” Keith deadpans. His soulmate just laughs at him, asshole. Sighing, Keith tries to look ahead and not cringe, “What are we waiting for?” 

“My will to live.” Keith laughs at him this time, “Not funny! There’s like forty more relatives than I even know, but they all know me,” 

“Hah, just be an orphan,” 

Lance looks more than slightly concerned, his eyes widening, “Uhh, no.” Glancing forwards again, and squeezing his soulmate's hand, Lance pulls them both forwards, up to the metal door, and knocking on the window next to it. 

Almost instantly, Keith hears chaos from inside, and regrets living. 

Lance cringes, as someone who looks like his sister, probably the one at the hospital, opens the door, only her face visible, and more shouting heard behind her, “Hey Lance, hey his soulmate,” 

“Veronica,” Lance sighs, “Please,” 

She smirks, and almost looks like Pidge. Keith’s not sure if he’s supposed to be scared yet, and doesn’t really want to find out. With a nice tone, but a face not matching, she says, “Alright,” and opens the door-

Holy shit. 

There has to be like twenty people, and Keith is not here for it. Most of them look older, their age or above, and some that could be grandparents, but there still is a few kids, which Keith counts as too many. 

A chorus of hello’s are thrown around the room, with excited screaming from a younger one. Lance immediately sees him, this little boy that looks almost exactly like him, “Silvio!” He holds out a fist, and is met with Silvio’s little hand, “What’s up little man?”

“So good! Kinda, mom said I can’t have dessert if-” the little boy looks straight up at Lance with this glint in his eyes, “You went to space.”

“Heck yeah, little man,” Lance smiles, and Keith can’t help himself from smiling, too, “I’ll tell some stories later, for now, I gotta talk to mami, where’s she at?” The little boy points farther into the house, where it looks quieter. Thank god.

Lance still hasn’t let go of Keith’s hand, which makes Keith feel so much better, but he can feel the stares from the family, as their eyes drift towards where they’re touching. Lance told him earlier to not worry, their family’s close so they’re not going to hold back questions. 

Keith can’t even believe this type of family is real, he always imagined this in tv shows, no family could actually be this close and happy. But nonetheless, they were here, and Keith was being dragged to Lance’s mom.

Turning the corner, they run into a kitchen, where Lance’s mom is sitting at the table, drinking something. Her eyes light up as they come into the room, “Oh you two, get over here!” Rushing over, Lance lets go of Keith’s hand, to pull his mom into a hug.

While Keith, being the anxious piece of shit he is, awkwardly stands back, holding one hand over his elbow, not sure what to do. 

“Keith, I can practically see you overthinking,” Lance starts, looking over from hugging his mom, “And” His voice gets louder, as he looks away from Keith and into the rest of the house, where a lot of them were waiting, “My family already thinks we’re one person, so it’s fine,” 

There’s a few chuckles, but Keith skittishly walked closer, standing a bit behind Lance, before his soulmate grabbed his shirt and pulled him in. 

Keith had no clue what the fuck to do, once again, his mom laughs lightly, “I guess you aren’t much of a hugger, than,” 

Lance just shakes his head, “Mami, no,” He switches to spanish, and Keith knows enough about how Lance speaks that he knows his soulmate just told his mom that he didn’t grow up being hugged so they have to fix that.

“Hey! I’m fine,” Lance chuckles to himself, as his mom looks a little confused. 

His soulmate catches the look, and immediately says the worst thing he could possibly say, “There isn’t a lot to do in space so I taught him spanish.” 

She almost looks excited, about to say something, when someone, cough, that sounds like Veronica, cough, wolf whistles, “I can’t think of anyone you could do,” 

“Shut the fuck up Veronica it’s not my fault you’re still single.”

She looks almost pouting to the side, in the same dramatic fashion that Lance does, “I’m too good for any of them, and Keith,” She says, her tone nice, too nice, “ If you ever want to leave Lance, know that-”

“Oh my god!” Lance exclaims, “Don’t hit on my soulmate!” She just laughs harder, “Pinche Mierda, stop!”

In a sing-songy voice, she answers, “No es mi culpa que él sea demasiado bueno para ti,” 

“Dios mio, I hate all of you.” 

They laugh at him, and Keith thinks he might enjoy this. 

“So,” his soulmates mom calls back their attention again, “You two were sent here as punishment?”

“Uhh,” Lance rubs the back of his neck, “Kind of? It’s just, mami, I’ve always had a bit of insomnia and Keith’s always had horrible insomnia so we were kind of working during the night? And Shiro didn’t really like it, I don’t understand why, we were getting the most done, but-”

“When was the last time you too slept?”

Dead silence, Keith is not willing to answer that, and neither is Lance. 

“Lancito,” 

“A few days I think,” he fell apart like a cookie when his mom said that single thing, “It’s just, being on Earth isn’t the same.” His mom starts looking more concerned, about to say something, when Keith cuts in. 

“We nap when we can, it’s just been a few days since actually sleeping all night.” 

She just sighs, but doesn’t respond, and Keith’s not sure if that’s good or not. Lance glances back towards her, a sad look on his face, before turning away, and leading them out of the kitchen, into a living room. 

They shoved onto a corner, smushed so close that Lance decided that sitting on his lap, and putting his legs on whatever family member’s next to them. Keith almost feels bad, or he would, if he wasn’t blushing so hard and trying to make sure no one else sees it by hiding his face behind Lance.

“So Lance, what aliens did you kill?” Keith almost blanches at the question, mostly because it’s asked by a child, looking up brightly towards Lance. 

“Yeah!” Silvio yells, “Did you ship have lasers? Poisonous gas? Quicksand?”

He chuckles, smiling brightly, “We fought the Galra, they’re this alien race with purple fur, yellow eyes,” Lance puts his fingers in his mouth, like they’re teeth, “And giant fangs! But not all of them were bad, there’s a group that was super cool! They were like a resistance group, and guess what?” 

The children, and most of the adults, lean in, “Keith’s half galra, his mom was part of that group,” 

Silvio gasps, “Do you have superpowers? Super strength?” His little arm is holding tightly onto Keith’s, and he doesn't know what to do with that. 

“Not really… I’m a little stronger, but that’s it,” He looks disappointed. Keith’s pretty happy that he doesn't have more galra features, he looks so human that no one can tell that he’s actually Galra.

Veronica’s staring at him, Keith swallows harshly, “You don’t look like a galra,” She says, oh no, Lance is about to throw shit down, “Just like how Lance doesn’t look Cuban! You’re perfect for each other.”

Uhhh…

“Dios mio Veronica, you can’t just say that,” Lance says, deadpan, “Also, you don’t look cuban either,” 

She looks offended, and ready to start a fight, but luckily, someone takes over the conversation, “How did you two meet?” 

And that’s almost worse. 

“So,” Lance starts, glancing towards Keith, “You all know me, I don’t pay any attention in school at all, and the Garrison was boring as hell. So I talked the whole time, sorry mami! My grades were good though, for the most part. But like, Keith actually pays attention, so I annoyed the hell out of him. Then,” he pauses, for dramatic affect, Keith’s not sure if he wants to punch or kiss him, “I was being a dumbass, and sitting in front of the door blocking everyone, so he hit my trying to leave,” 

Oh my god, that dumbass… Keith’s even more sure he wants to kiss him, he changed the story, at least enough so that Keith doesn’t sound as terrible of a person as he was, but dragged himself down. 

“Well,” Keith starts, “More like-” Lance puts a hand over his mouth.

“Ignore him, he’s trying to make me look better, but yeah, that happened, we got in trouble, and ran from detention, stole a person, and then found a giant robot.” 

“Oh my god Lance you can’t just say it like that,” Keith looks down, away from the rest of them. Lance just got the attention of everyone nearby them, and Keith’s not excited to answer questions. 

Luckily, they’re mostly going towards his soulmate and not Keith, so he spends his time rubbing small circles in Lance’s leg and trying not to have a panic attack.

Time passes, and eventually, they’re being called to grab food. Because so many people are staying here, at least still they can get to their own homes, they all scatter around the house. Some of them at the kitchen table, then scattered around the kitchen. Children sitting on the ground, and more people scattered around the living room. 

It was a wreck, but Keith was kind of growing to love it.

They were sitting in the same spot on the couch, Keith had a bit of space on the armrest to put his food and not spill it, while Lance was still taking up his entire lap and at least half of the rest of the couch. 

“So, what is your superpower, Lance?” One of the kids asked, “Mom said that soulmates always have superpowers and a tattoo.” Keith almost laughs. 

Lance looks around quietly, like he’s trying to make sure no one’s trying to kill them. 

Keith realizes with a start, that they don’t have to worry about things like that anymore. 

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it a secret,” She smiles, nodding and leaning in, so that Lance could stage whisper into her ear. Everyone else in the room could definitely hear, “We can heal people.” 

“Lance, that’s not a superpower!”

He laughs, fully, radiating happiness everywhere, “Hmm, maybe we could show you? Go see if anyones hurt, alright? Then I’ll show you that it is a superpower!” She nods, running away, Keith can hear her voice going around the room, asking.

“That had to be useful,” Lance’s dad says, “especially after… everything.” 

Lance nods, “Yeah, it works better on each other, so we woke up really fast, and healed the rest of the paladins,” 

“Then we slept for 3 days.” Keith decides to add on.

Lance gives him a smirk, trying to look mad but failing, “Hmm, at least our’s is more useful than-” He realizes what he was about to say, and stops immediately. Some of the family looks confused and curious, but no one asks more. 

Then, the little girl comes bounding back, a teenage boy in hand, “Marcus cut his hand,” He looks more than slightly unwilling to be there, but doesn’t try to rip the girl's hand out of his.

He holds out his hand, and there’s a decent sized cut running from between his fingers to his wrist. It’s not deep, but it is long. 

The little girl is excitedly waiting, and so are a lot of the adults. They’re leaning forwards, trying to see it as it happens, “Sorry, sorry, there’s no flashes of light, just, well,” Lance pauses, “You’ll see.” 

He grabs Keith’s hand, as he’s about to get another bite of food, and pulls their hands over his scratch. There's a second of hesitation, while everyone’s holding their breaths, and they move their hands. 

There’s no scratch. 

Well, duh, everyone looks a bit surprised but Keith just wants to eat. 

A wave of exhaustion hits him instead, and he yawns, through the corner of his eye, he sees Lance yawn too. 

Veronica chuckled, “Didn’t know you two also copied each other too,”

Lance starts, “What-?” 

“That’s just a soulmate thing,” Keith says, “You’ll notice it more now, but we’ll do the same things at the same time, even if we can’t see the other.” 

“maybe we should start heading for bed,” Lance’s mom suggests, “It’s getting a bit late, and these two,” She points at Keith and Lance, “Need to sleep.

“Mami, I’m fine, promise.” 

“I can see your eyebags from the kitchen, Lancito.” 

Not too much later, after cleaning up the dishes and putting the younger kids to bed, they realize something. All the bedrooms are incredibly full right now. The living room is filled with blankets and pillows. The only place left was the couch. 

“I’m good with the couch,” Lance says, and Keith nods. They could be sleeping on the floor, but everyone insisted they needed a better place to sleep. Keith was almost sure they couldn’t both fit on that couch laying down. 

“Well, if you’re sure,” His dad answers, an uncertain tone in his voice. The couch has already been made ready, with a pillow and a blanket, and all the throw pillows were removed. 

“Yeah, we’ll be good. Buenos Noches, quiero dormir.” With a small chuckle, he leaves the living room, heading to another room, and hitting the lights as he goes. 

Almost reading his mind, Lance lets Keith lay down first, so he can be up against the back of the couch, he felt safer there. Then, Lance layed down, scooting backwards into Keith, and sighing as he relaxed into the contact. 

“Just,” Lance sighs, “Wake me up if you can’t sleep, alright?” 

Keith scoots up, to kiss Lance, “Always. Now, sleep, I’m tired.” 

They’re barely fitting on the couch without falling off, and almost look like one person. When Veronica leaves her room to grab a drink of water, she thinks they are one person, then, realizes that it’s actually two. 

Pulling out her phone, she takes a quick photo. Or atleast, she tries. Her flash was on. Instead of just taking a picture, Keith wakes up with a start, Lance being shoken awoke at the same time. 

They’re on their feet in a second, Keith’s knife growing to a sword in half the time, Lance’s fists tightening. 

“Mierda! It’s just me!” Veronica yells, well shit, everyone was going to be awake now. Keith slowly breaths in, trying to calm down. His arms were still shaking, and Lance didn’t look much better.

Coming out of the bedroom, Lance’s mom walks out, an almost angry expression on her face, “What’s going on?” 

Veronica holds the phone out, “They were being all coupley, so I took a picture but the flash was on,” 

Lance shrugs it off, taking a deep breath. Keith can tell he’s still panicking, but trying to push it all down, “It’s fine, sorry, I’m going back to sleep.” Keith nods, his sword shifting back down, and he shoves it into his pocket. 

“No, no,” His mom says, “I will get you two something to drink. Come over here.” She starts walking into the kitchen, as Keith glances to Lance, who just shrugs. Alright, well then.

She’s pouring something steaming into mugs, and gestures for them to sit down, Keith is just following Lance, too nervous to do anything else. 

“Here,” She puts two mugs of… hot chocolate? That actually sounded amazing right now, “You two have been through a lot. Are you alright?”

Lance nods, taking a quick sip, “We’re good, mami. Just, a lot of- we got woken up by attacks a lot. So…” Keith can just nod, sipping his hot chocolate and not caring if he burns his tongue. It was good. 

She slowly nods, “Well, please, finish your drinks and try to sleep, alright? I don’t want my sons to be exhausted constantly.” Keith chokes on his drink, as Lance laughs at him. “Oh, and Keith,” He looks up towards her, as she starts to walk out of the kitchen, “Invite Krolia over sometime, I’d love to get to know her better.” 

She leaves the kitchen, Keith’s debating his existence and trying to figure out if that was a threat or not. 

“So,” Lance smirks, “Welcome to the family.” 

-

They definitely should not have agreed to train students at the Garrison, Keith and Lance had to be some of the worst students the Garrison ever had, combined, it was pure chaos.

To be fair, they weren’t really wanted by the Garrison either. Shiro and Hunk had been asked first, but they both declined, Shiro didn’t particularly want to step foot anywhere near the Garrison again, and Hunk was off Earth learning recipes from aliens, working to start his own restaurant with cultures all over the universe. 

Then, the Garrison had reluctantly asked Pidge, who made whichever poor intern tasked with tracking them down terrified. They hacked their computer so that it would repeat the word no, over and over again, every time they tried to type. It took two weeks for them to fix it, and then Pidge cut off contact with the Garrison. It’d made Keith laugh, but he was slightly worried about starting another war.

But nonetheless, the Garrison finally asked Keith and Lance to come teach some students. Lance had almost immediately sent them a response consisting of two letters, n and o, but Keith had stopped him.

If they could, they should make sure the next gen of fighters don’t turn into such hardasses. Lance had reluctantly agreed, which led them to where they were currently, standing in front of what had to be a hundred students, with no clue what to do. 

“Keith, what the fuck did we do in strategy classes?”

Keith’s eyes widen, trying to keep his voice down, “I don’t know! I skipped half of them.” 

Lance sighs, “ I didn’t pay attention, what are we supposed to do? Strategy isn’t like, something we can teach, Keith, no quiero enseñarles a algunos hijos de puta,” Somebody in the class starts laughing, the last thing Lance said was much louder than everything else, and obviously, they knew spanish. 

“Desafortunadamente, estamos aquí y no tenemos un plan,” Keith looks out to the class, they all looked slightly bored, they knew who they were, all the paladins were kind of famous, but even with that bit of excitement because of that, they still looked bored as hell.

“Wait,” Lance says, louder, “Remember that one training thing we did.”

“Yes Lance, I remember all of them,” Keith deadpans, “All of them in all of the years we were in the castle,”

Lance punches his arm, “No no, the blindfolded one,” 

Keith almost sighs, before smirking, realizing what’s about to happen, “Dios mio, Lance, this will be great.”

Lance steps forward, a small smirk on his face, “So, everyone needs to pair up, Keith’s gonna go grab the supplies we need while I explain,” Keith flashes his soulmate a mad look, in which he just laughs. Keith can't keep the smile off his face as he walks into the hallways, to find anything that could be used as blindfolds. 

Eventually, he does find something, and when he comes back outside, Lance is just finishing up explaining. His soulmate's eyes brighten when he sees Keith, “Oh, perfect timing! Alright, go grab a blindfold from Keith, and then the matches can start.” 

Keith looks towards Lance, matches? “Did you just set up a fight club?”

“The first rule of fight club is that we don’t talk about fight club,” Lance deadpans, Keith chuckles, he loved that movie, it was so incredibly dumb. Lance looks away from Keith, who notices a small blush on the Cuban’s face, and starts talking to the class again, “So, any challengers ready?” His voice is loud, like an announcer on game shows, and Keith sees as a few students excitedly raise their hands. 

“Alright, well, I’m going to go with- drum roll please-” there’s the sound of excited clapping, “the pairinggggg,” his voice drawls out, then Lance points out into the class, “curly blond and angry brunette, against…” he glances over the class,” what about against me and Keith?”

Keith deadpans, and he knows the students picked probably are too. “Lance, we’ve had years of training.” 

“No no,” Lance waves his hand, “We’ll switch partners. You have to understand your teammates, and be able to trust them. I trust Keith with my life, and he trusts me with his. But, I’ve known you for like 5 minutes at this point. Even if you had the best fighter in the world, if you don’t have a good strategist, nothing will go right.”

Lance claps his hands together, looking more excited and confident, “We’ll do two rounds, one with the switch, and one without.” 

Keith glares at Lance, and speaks before he can, “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

“That’s my line!” 

“Not anymore,” The class chuckles, and Keith realizes he has a blush on his face, and turns away. “Alright, I’ll be fighting, Lance is strategy, who’s my strategist?” 

The ‘angry brunette’, as Lance said, raises her hand. She doesn't really look angry, now she just looks nervous, but Keith kind of gets where Lance was coming from. That doesn't mean he doesn’t want to slap him any less for saying something like that to a kid.

“I’m Keith, you are?” Keiht knows Lance is right next to him, talking to his fighter, they’re already getting along well.

“Kara, I don’t really know what I’m doing, sorry,” her words speed up, panic clear on her face. Shit Keith didn't’ know how to deal with this, he barely dealt with it himself. 

“It’s fine, this is meant to show growth. No ones the best at this on their first try.” She nods, still panicking, Kieth really doens’t know what to do, “Just take a deep breath, I promise, you can’t fuck up as badly as Lance the first time,” 

Lance narrows his eyes at Keith, “What was that, mi amor, the sound of lies coming out of your mouth?” 

Keith has to hold back a laugh, “The only lies are the ones you just said,” 

“Bullshit!” Lance exclaims, in a sing-songy voice, Keith opens his mouth, about to counter, when Lance puts his hands on his ears, “Oh no, I can’t hear the lies you’re trying to feed these poor children,” His voice is loud, almost obnoxiously so. It’s kind of adorable.

“Ignore him,” Keith deadpans, “Let’s get on with the fight club. Don’t worry about getting hurt,” Keith stops, before adding on, “For the most part, don’t purposely get hurt just because we can heal you, but if something happens, it’ll be fine.” 

“Yeah! There’s limits to everything, so just avoid getting life threateningly hurt, but we do heal concussions pretty easily,” 

“Shut the fuck up I don’t want to have to heal concussions.”

Lance laughs, and turns back to his partner, “Ready?” He nods, “Let’s get this show on the road!”

They get everyone to circle up, in true fight club fashion, with Keith and the blond blindfolded, their strategist’s behind them. “Alright,” Lance’s voice rings out, “Let the fight begin!” 

Lance is already talking, Keith can hear the footsteps of his opponent, but he tries to just focus on the student behind him. “He’s right in front of you, 5 feet,” Keith smiles, knowing it looks sinister. Running forwards, he slams into the person, sending them shooting backwards, “3 feet in front, on the ground. Getting back up. Go left, 3 steps,” Keith follows what she’s saying, “Go forwards, he’s two feet in front, still getting up.” 

Running forwards again, he hears Lance telling his partner to move back, while Keith’s own partner adjusts, “Turn more left, continue moving,” Keith hits something hard, and head on. 

The student he was facing off against groans, and Keith knows he just won. It wasn't even that hard. These students needed better training. 

“Well,” Lance says almost sheepishly, “Red team’s the victor! Good job, Patrik, let’s get you healed up,” Pulling off the blindfold, Keith reaches for Lance’s hand, and then puts another hand on the student. 

His injuries, mostly just a bleeding leg and probably a headache from being thrown around, instantly disappear, Keith feels more exhausted, but not enough to stop yet. 

“Alright! Good job, both of you! But now, who can tell me what went wrong?” 

A student raises their hand, answering with a nervous tone, “Patrik doesn't have enough fighting training,” Patrick groans again, shoving his head into his knees, Keith almost laughs.

“To a point, yes! I’m guessing most of you have only basic fighting training, while we have more than a few years, so there’ll always be a disadvantage, but what else?” 

“He wasn’t following your orders?” 

Lance beams, “Yes! So the point of this was to show you have to trust your teammates, and yes, Patrik did start out a little rocky, but doing this for the first time is always rough. Me and Keith have done this like,hundreds of times, it was the easiest way for us to learn to work together, but you guys are doing this for the first time,” 

A few collective nods go through the group, before Keith starts talking, “Now, let’s do this again, with our original partners,” 

Lance smiles towards the students, “Sorry, this might be a bit rough,” Neither of them look very happy, “but do your best! This is just teaching the basics of strategies, which make it easier to plan your actions while flying, so take this all seriously!” 

Keith huffs, and then both teams are ready to go. Lance calls out again, “Alright, let’s get this going, Keith, left 4 and straight angled right 7.” Following what he says, Keith dashes forwards, “Punch left, mid range,” 

Barely ten seconds into the match, Keith punches Patrick, and with an ooof, the boy goes flying, Keith’s more than sure they won. 

“Sorry Patrik!” Lance calls out, “I think that’ll be match,” Keith pulls off his blindfold. The kid had landed much farther away than before, and Keith almost winced, that had to hurt. 

Walking up to him, Keith helps him get up, “Need healing?” 

He shakes his head,”No, just disoriented,” And Keith has to nod to that. Blindfolds were pretty annoying. 

“So, who can tell me why- why that happened?” 

He points to a student, “because you two are soulmates and work together constantly,” 

Lance winces, rubbing the back of his neck, and Keith tenses, it was still terrifying, sometimes , to have that out in the world. Luckily, Matt and Shiro kept it hidden, and sometimes, Keith really wished they did too. 

“Well, yeah,” Lance says, slight bit of anxiety in his voice, “We’ve been working together for, 5 years now? Something around there, so we know the in’s and out’s of most stuff. With long term teammates, you’ll develop codes to make sure everyone’s safe and not compromised, but you probably won’t have to deal with that, really.” Lance's voice trails out.

“But it’s still important to be able to deal with any type of teammate,” Keith adds on, “And, I’m half galra, so I’m stronger and faster, with a better reaction time, than most full humans. You were screwed from the start.” 

Lance laughs, “I need me some galra dna,” 

“No you don- wait, Lance is that a fucking sex joke?” Lance just laughs, looking away from Keith, “Lance-”

-

They’ve been off-world for a while, at this point. They did what they had to, especially if it meant more people were going to live, but Keith was about ready to just let these people die.

They’re living off a planet they’ve practically destroyed, and just saying, ‘nah, we’ll be fine’ instead of taking their advice and leaving. 

Sometimes, Keith really wanted to just hit people, but that was too uncivilized, apparently. Luckily, Lance had noticed how stressed he was, and managed to get them a night off, dragging him off to the beach. 

It wasn’t particularly pretty, but it wasn’t that bad either. It’s sunset was a brilliant green, because of all the toxins in the air, but Keith was ignoring that. The colors made everything else pop, as the sun slowly swept below the horizon, leaving the ocean a bright color of green, and the sand glowing.

“If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be?” lance asks, as Keith lays on his chest, staring up at the night sky. 

“Maybe fire control? Whatever that’s called,” His soulmate laughs, “What about you?” 

“Well, I guess I have to pick water control,” Keith smiles, reaching over to fiddle with Lance’s hand. “This beach kinda reminds me of that beach in Cuba, you know? Like-” 

“The one with a different bar every twenty feet?” 

“Yeah! It was amazing, I don't think I've ever gotten that wasted.” Squeezing his soulmate's hand, Keith nods.

“Let’s go on a walk,” He moves off Lance, a heavy weight in his pocket. A square box that couldn’t weigh more than a few ounces, but every step, it felt like it was weighing him down. There was somewhere else it had to be.

Lance smiles as he stands, taking Keith’s hand as they walk down the edge of the water. “It really is beautiful, isn’t it?” 

He nods, but his mind is somewhere else. They’d talked about it before, but Lance always wanted it to happen on Earth…

Keith glances towards his soulmate, he looks happy, staring out into the sea. It didn’t matter what would happen, Keith would be happy as long as his soulmate was happy. 

“Lance,” Keith stops, leaning down on one knee, “I want to spend the rest of my life being happy with you, I never want to leave your side, no matter how many dumb things we talk about, I just want to see you happy.” he takes a deep breath. There’s tears in Lance’s eyes, his hand covering his mouth. “Will you marry me?” 

He smiles, through the tears, “Oh my god, you big sap. Of course.” He pulls Keith up, pulling him into a kiss, “I love you so much,” 

“I love you too,” Keith says back to his fiance. 

-

They don’t try to be late, as much as Pidge insists that they do, but stuff always comes up. It’s not their fault that they’re still going on missions and are wandering the universe, and the rest of them are being geniuses or some shit on Earth. 

But either way, Keith knows that they’re walking in thirty minutes late, and Pidge is going to make them pay.

Every year, they’ve had a small celebration, or at least, it started small and now they invite everyone they actually like from the universe, so it’s chaotic as hell, but a celebration nonetheless. 

Lance is holding his hand, and he definitely knows what Keith is thinking, cause he squeezes his hand, and smiles gently, “We’re only thirty minutes late, not as bad as last year,” 

Scoffing, Keith squeezes his fiance's hand, “Yeah,” And with that, they walk in. 

It’s loud as hell inside, with some music that sounds like Queen kartzat’s type of thing, along with bright colored lights and way too many people. Keith almost sighs, they might not be singled out by Pidge this year.

At least, till everything shuts down, and spotlights hit them. Everyone goes quiet, confusion everywhere across the room, at least, everywhere but one. 

Pidges starts cackling, holding a red solo cup, leaning over. They’re probably saying something, but through their drunken stupor, nothing they can actually hear is coming out. Keith sighs, they’re safer than last year. 

At least, till Pidge’s eyes narrow down on something, eyes glitning, “Is that a fucking ring?” They’re screaming, Keith already feels the years being taken from his life. 

Lance holds up his hand, showing off the engagement ring, a happy look on his face, Keith almost wants to kiss him right now. 

Shiro’s crossing his arms, staring down at Keith, “So you just didn’t tell us?” His eyebrows raise, and Keith’s almost ready to slap a bitch.

Luckily, Lance starts talking, “No, no, no, no, no,” he’s waving his hands, still smiling, but there’s a bit of stress on his face, he doesn’t really like everyone looking at them, either. “We were off world on a mission when it happened, but like, Shiro, I fucking cried,” he twists the ring, pushing it up into Shiro’s face, “It has our soulmarks,”

Keith glances around the room, a lot of the aliens are still confused, and luckily, a majority of the species here don’t understand Earth customs. Good, they really didn’t want a big wedding. If they realized what was going on, all of them would insist on coming, it doesn't matter how confused they’ll be.

“Well,” Hunk walks up, patting Lance on the back, “Congrats, it took you long enough,” 

Pidge stumbles closer, “Nope, doesn't cut it,” mumbling under their breath, a excited look takes over their face, “The Klance file,” 

“No,” Keith and Lance both say, instantly, Pidge starts cackling. Shiro nods, shrugging, and Pidge smiles even more creepily, “Yesss,” Pulling out a tablet, and pressing too many buttons, Lance sighs, pulling Keith away. 

“Might as well get a good seat,” he suggests, and Keith has to nod. There's chairs littered across the room, and with the exhaustion Keith’s feeling right now, it might be better if they sit down. 

Eventually, Pidge gets the pictures to project onto a wall, a round of congratulations going around the room, as the first picture goes up. 

It's them, on the scooter together. Lance is screaming, and Keith looks vaguely happy, the wind whipping everywhere. They both look much younger, they had to be, what, 19? 

Keith almost double takes, it’s been so long since then, since when they found out they were soulmates and they fought almost nonstop. Time hasn’t stopped, but sometimes, it feels like they’re still 19 and fighting for their lives. 

More pictures switch through, everyone has either sat down, or continued chatting, the music and lights turning back to normal. 

Lance reaches over, putting a hand over Keith’s shoulder. Keith leans over, closing his eyes. They really should have planned better, their flight had exhausted thim, as had the mission before that. 

Keith feels sleep pull him away, as the room gets darker and quieter, the only thing he can hear is Lance’s breathing.

Pidge looks over, trying to see the pair's response to all the pictures, but instead finds them asleep, practically sitting on one chair. 

They cackle, pulling out their tablet, and turning it into the camera. Pidge narrows the camera into the pair, as they practically snore into the other. 

Another picture gets added into the file.

-

Okay, so maybe Lance was being a little bit dramatic, Keith was literally like 20 feet away from him but-

“Lance, you will not ruin your wedding by seeing the groom,” she crosses her arms, a determined look on her face that Lance knows will not change, “I will not allow it,” 

“But mamiiii, please, just like a second?” 

Their wedding _was_ , emphasis on was, supposed to be small and just family, but then Coran accidentally mentioned it to some royal aliens that knew them. Lance loved Coran, but sometimes he didn’t know when to be quiet.

So now half the universe was now sitting outside of this room, for him and Keith, Lance wasn’t sure whether that made him want to puke or smile.

It had taken nearly two years to plan everything, but what took the longest was finding the perfect spot to have a wedding, big enough to hold everyone, and then making sure everyone got an invitation and understood what was happening. Their entire culture was available at their fingertips, but for some reason, aliens had to know it from them. 

Their venue was some famous old theater that wasn’t being used anymore. Some seats were removed, and others fixed, till it would fit everyone and everything else they’d need. It was in an open area so the ships could land and not be super in the way, but close enough to a city that all their Earth friends could show up. 

It had taken forever to find and fix, but right now, it was covered in flowers, and drapes that looked stunning. The lighting was fixed, so it was more candlelight than spotlight, and everyone should be in their seats now. 

Keith would be waiting, right now, in front of all those people. His soulmate was waiting for him. 

Taking a deep breath, Lance rubbed a hand through his hair, and took his mother’s hand, “Estas lista?”

“Si,” She nods, gripping his hand even tighter. “Everything will be perfect, Lancito,” she pulls him into a tight hug, and Lance feels ready to just cry, “Keep a smile on your face, your fiance is waiting.” 

Yeah, his soulmate was waiting. 

Pushing open the door, he hears gasps from the crowd. His suit was a stunning white, made to show off everything that he had. His hair was done to perfection, looking amazing. His makeup almost made it look like he was 19 again.

His eyes fall on Keith, and the entire world stops. 

His hair is pulled back and curled, dropping lightly onto his shoulders, and his suit was black, traditional. He looks stunning. That’s the man he’s about to marry. 

“Get your head out of your pants, Lance!” Oh no, Pidge did not just say that, that little shit was not getting any of their nice tequila tonight. 

Lance is grinning, he knows Keith is laughing, the crowd is laughing, too, but that doesn’t matter All that matters right now is Keith. 

He takes a step forward, and another. 

Then, he’s letting go of his mom’s hand, and with a bright smile as she goes to stand with their bridesmaids. 

His breath is gone, as Keith stands in front of him. He looks amazing, and beautiful. There’s a small blush on his face, a bit of anxiety too, but- 

He’s just looking at Keith, as the priest starts talking, and his anxieties melt away. With his soulmate there, holding his hand, everything will be alright. 

“And now, for your vows,” 

Lance gulps, they promised to keep it short, but nothing he ever said would be enough. He wanted to write out the world, to write about everything that Keith does that’s perfect and amazing, but what he landed on seemed best. 

“Keith, after all this time, I can’t believe you’re the person that changed my life. Now, I can’t wait to make you my husband.” 

He’s not crying, at least, right away, till he sees the tears that are falling down Keith’s face and now he’s crying, tears running down his face, sniffling, probably looking horrible, but that doesn’t matter. 

Half the audience sounds like it’s crying, too. He can almost distinctively hear his mom and dad sobbing. 

Keith takes a deep breath, not taking his eyes off Lance for a second, “When I met you, Lance, I didn’t think anything but that this would be-” He sniffles, trying to hold down his tears, Lance knows he’s crying even harder now, “a long, long life. Since then, I’ve lived every day knowing you were going to be by my side, and that I would be by yours. Thank you for standing with me, through everything, and walking with me through hell.” He takes a deep breath, tears falling, “I want to spend the rest of my days with you.” 

“You may now kiss,” 

Lance smiles through the tears, and pulls his husband in for a kiss. 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, thanks for sticking through this fic!!! A lot of scenes i wanted to write were skipped, so there is the possibliity for a sequel or something like that, but for now, this is the end of this series!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Updates will hopefully be once a week, but that will almost def change. If you liked this to any degree, check out Toboe's fic, it's where the concept for this soulmate au originated and is really good!  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548689/chapters/43963657
> 
> Also, I have no clue how many chapters there will be at this point, but I'm leaving it at 5 and we gonna see from there.


End file.
